


Strange Wanderings

by Hella_Shipper



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bondage, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Slavery, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-03 12:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1744250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hella_Shipper/pseuds/Hella_Shipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the year 8822. A race known as The Alphas has conquered the Quad Galaxy and enslaved Earth. Stiles, a technological genius, is picked up on Earth by a desperate group of defected Alphas. They possess the last remaining ship of the 8 centuries gone Beacon Fleet; The Equitas.</p>
<p>When Earth is destroyed before his eyes, Stiles accepts an invitation to become their engineer and flee their miserable corner of space one and for all. As it turns out, destiny has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I, uh, finished everything. You've got weapons back online and I got you running to warp six-eight. There's a few shady ports around here with the parts you need. They'll work for trade as well," Stiles told the expectant looking Werewolves. His urge to escape their gaze was an intense one. One day he feared willing the ability to sink into the floor to existence; as much as he dealt with spacers. Spacers were clean, well-off, and put out by the odor of a dirty Earth kid overstaying his welcome. He was acutely embarrassed by his odor in their presence and melting away would be a blessing.

"Already?" Their captain asked in astonishment. He answered with a shrug.

"Yeah, you can check if you want to. I could have gotten the warp a little higher but you guys were on a time crunch," he said. "Sorry."

"Why are you sorry? I could have gotten it to five-two in a week... maybe. Actually no, probably not," Scott praised and Stiles looked to the floor. He meant well but the excess of attention directed at him in his ratty clothes and grimy hair was distressing.

"I read a lot about the old Beacon Fleet ships. I was already kind of familiar," replied the spooked teen dismissing the praise entirely. Stiles had a baleful gaze, with eyes brown and wide as a fawn. His lips were nice beneath dirty skin and his skinny waist appealing to Peter.

"You are much too cute to dismiss a compliment," he said. Stiles looked up in shock. He was the eldest of the odd assemblage of crew and terribly handsome with his sharp blue eyes, high nose bridge and cheek bones. The kind of handsome they used to put in old earth films. Built as fit and muscular as all wolves were; his attentions threw him. He wasn't used to compliments and praise from spacers let alone red-eyed defectors. It wasn't that defectors were bad to work for, they were in fact more generous in payment than other species, but tended to give him an extremely wide berth.

"Oh... Sorry," he finished lamely. You always said sorry to the wolves. He stuck with what he knew; the please, thank yous, and don't kill me's of surviving planet earth.

"Well I'm going to check out the systems. The diagnostic takes about an hour. You should go with Allison to medical bay in the mean time. B.O.I.D. picked up a couple of pretty bad infections on a bio-scan. It's standard practice for anyone boarding, we weren't prying or anything. But we've got a sterilizing field that should clean you right up," offered the young man. 

"I don't want to put anyone out," he replied hesitantly. It wasn't an offer he wanted to refuse. The free clinics on earth treated the injured with band-aids, prayer, and false hope. Getting his implants installed had nearly killed him. A couple friends had pulled a fast one and ripped off a supply truck with the meds needed to just barely save his life. He'd never quite kicked back from the procedure and wondered if the field would help.

"No no no! You wouldn't be putting anyone out at all. You worked a miracle for us. Let us work a miracle on those nasty protozoa," Scott said with a laugh. "Come on and I'll show you the way there." It was a friendly hand he laid on Stiles' back. Still, every muscle in his spine drew so tight that he could almost feel the pain it caused. It was almost instinctual to drain it. Instead, being Scott he ignored it long enough to pat the kid on the back a couple times and smoothly usher Stiles through the door; never making mention of it. His steady flow of chatter never ceased.

"Our medical bay is cool, like really cool," the young man rambled. "The Equitas was stocked to meet the needs of 7,000 people. We have a lifetime supply of nanobots, sterilizing fields, organ regrowth thanks, limb regeneration tanks, and a lot of things that I don't touch because I don't know what they do. It's awesome. B.O.I.D. said a lot of this technology fell into disuse after all the big economies collapsed. We can treat diseases people don't have cures for anymore," Scott said proudly. 

"You have nanobots?" Stiles asked in awe.

"Yeah, I'll totally show you before I check out the systems."

"Really?"

"Dude, I look for any excuse to show off the toys that B.O.I.D. has," the werewolf said with a friendly grin. It was odd how genuinely amiable Scott seemed. Stiles wanted to think it was genuine, he wanted to relax, but he didn't want to die. In his experience if one shoe dropped the other was always quick to follow.

The medical bay was impressive, as Scott had promised. It looked equipped not only for military emergency treatment but research as well. The size alone stood testament to that. There were enough bed to easily accommodate hundreds of patients. There were offices with programs still running and lunches uneaten on the desk. The programs looked relevant to research that would have been done on this vessel. Medical tools lay scattered, instruments still rested with dried blood on the table far too fresh to have had time to flake away.

"You got this ship recently," he blurted.

"Kind of, we were drifting on fumes on a freighter when this thing picked us up and we've been here ever since," Scott answered. "B.O.I.D. said we could stay... So we did. We didn't steal it, or hurt anybody to get it. I promise." Stiles wanted so badly for that earnest reply to be true. As a child he'd always entertained notions of the wolves one day rising up to help defeat Deucalion. He had to believe that Werewolves were as morally ambiguous as humans; it helped him sleep at night.

"You should play the lottery."

"Huh, that's exactly what Peter said. I, uh, don't know what it means. He's a bigger Earth fan than most."

"People are into Earth?"

"A few yeah, not quite like Peter or Allison though. Peter really likes humans. You're the first one I've ever spoken to. I think I like humans too. Do you all smell like the sun?" He asked.

"Humans can't smell as well as Werewolves can. Your noses are thousands of times stronger than ours. I wouldn't know, I assumed I smelled like dirt."

"No way, you've got this weird trees and sunshine smell. You smell like... Like you're a really nice person. Like you're peaceful."

"Well I'm definitely not a fan of confrontation," the teen admitted with a grin.

"Well, I'm going to look over the system. You can check out the nanobots while the field works it's magic. I'll call if anything comes up. Afterwards we'll get you ferried down to the planet. I'll be sad to see you go. You're a freakin genius man."

Before Scott left he'd given Stiles the specs on the nanobots and some samples to look over within the sterilizing field. It was engrossing, the schematics alone filled his imagination with endless possibilities. The bots could do everything from regrowing damaged limbs to triggering chemical releases in the brain. The possibilities beyond that were absolutely fantastical and yet frightening possible. He sat on the hospital bed, head phones on, and listening to the monotonous drone of a help file.

Stiles jumped right off the bed when Peter snuck up behind him and plucked out his earphones.

"Talk to me, cute boy," Peter said sitting at the far end of the bed. It was a respectable space from where Stiles had been sitting. Not far enough in his opinion. Peter was the epitome of the apex predator; the Alpha. He was a defected high general from the looks of it. His natural eye color was catching the glow Alpha's got when they'd taken a few too many lives. His mother called it the monster becoming human.

"About what?" He asked warily. It was bolder than he normally got with the werewolves but Scott did genuinely seem to be running a different kind of pack. He'd been told those did exist.

"Well you might want to get back in the sterilization field for starters," Peter said and had the courtesy to remove himself from the bed to a chair. Stiles sidled back to the bed slowly and slid back under the sterilizing field. "That's better."

"If you say so." The man laughed and it sounded almost friendly. Werewolves laughing did tend to have generally negative connotations for Stiles.

"You should consider staying on board," he said after a moment. "I know enough about ships to know your work in the engine room was solid without a diagnostic. You're impressive, you could have a better life."

"I just did some repairs any half-assed spacer on a shady drift could have done."

"But you're not some half-assed spacer on a shady drift. You're from a slave planet. It's not unimpressive."

"You could find someone more qualified."

"Maybe, but I probably wouldn't want to have sex with them," the man said nonchalantly.

"That's so forward you went past me and hit the wall."

"I'm just saying think about the offer. All sexually aggressive flirting aside; good food, protection, and a place to stretch that unsually clever mind. It's not a bad deal. If you have friends or family holding you back it's not a bad deal."

"I'm not qualified. Scott seems like a terribly nice person who might just be offering a job to the poor earth kid. He's sent you in because you oh so clearly have the interpersonal skills. I appreciate the offer but you guys wouldn't be satisfied with me. It ain't great but we get by better than most. I can't abandon people I've trusted my life to for years, sexually aggressive flirting aside," the kid said with a smirk. Peter was man enough to admit being charmed by the dirty little brat. The sterilizing field went down just as Scott rang.

"I'm on the bridge. There's something going on with the sensors. We're getting some weird readings her planetside but B.O.I.D. can't place where they're originating from or identify them. I was wondering if Stiles wouldn't mind taking a look. And why are you in there?"

"Because he's cute," Peter replied shamelessly.

"Whatever, I'm getting some pretty big readings down here," Scott said. "But there's too much fallout in the atmosphere to identify it."

"They test out new bombs in the desert all the time. They wash out the atmopshere every couple of years but it's been awhile. It makes it impossible to get a lock on sub-atmospheric rad readings. I'm on my way though."

Peter opened the door for him, it was ridiculous considering the door did so itself. Still, he ushered him through with a gentlemanly sweep of his hand that had Stiles chuckling on the way out.

They walked to the bridge slowly; conversing along the way. Stiles wanted to enjoy the company of the flirt a little longer, despite himself. He wasn't so popular on Earth, not often noticed by man or woman. Most people disliked him and the danger his implants brought down on them all. Jennifer had invented flesh colored capping for them but he always feared the day a Fido looked a little too close. The only people nice to him were the little ones. It was what Stiles was willing to bring all hell down on his person for. When he'd woken up in the middle of the night to his father gone; he'd wandered in days for tears. As he'd grown older his own empathy for children in a similar situation had increased until he was looking after a couple dozen at any given time.

"Los Angeles is one of the rougher camps," Peter commented on their way to the bridge. 

"It has what I need there," he replied. "The camps in the smaller cities don't have the same resources I can scrap from the ruins."

"You wouldn't have to scrap from ruins on this ship." Truly, Stiles appreciated the determination this man had.

"Earth isn't so bad. Besides I can do more good down there than up here," he responded stepping onto the bridge.

The sensors, as Stiles thought, simply needed to be commanded to cross-reference real time atmospheric readings before the energy discharge against those that began when it took place. The sensors were intelligent and research based. They had a wide variety of functions that needed to be manually accessed. The typical scans ran a wide gammut but nothing compared to what human will could make them do. He pulled earth up on viewscreen with the interface in view so the other's could see his actions.

"This ship is dual purpose. The Equitas functioned as a fully stocked compliment to a war fleet, yes. But its ultimate designation was as a research vessel as well. There's a lot of functionality, more than you'd believe, but it has to be manually accessed," he explained as he started up the scan.

_"Tectonic instability detected. Rising levels of radical isotopes detected. Extreme core disturbance detected. Likelihood of extreme planetary catastrophe is absolute."_ B.O.I.D.'s voice advised as the rebooted scan allowed the sensors to properly report back to the ship. Stiles frowned at the limitations of the AI.

"Source?" Stiles queried the system.

_"Devastation Weapon 1289 also known as Core Crackers."_

"Advise method for proper response."

_"There is no time for proper response."_

Earth blew. It wasn't a violent explosion but more like thick glass fracturing into chunks. It seemed like a gentle force that separated the cracks. Atmosphere was ripped from rock and gently launched into the vacuum. There was little doubt people had survived the initial explosion only to be sent hurtling into space along a hail of rocks, fire, and water. The view screen was crisp enough, were he to concentrate, he could pick out their writhing bodies in the rock.

"Oh god," he breathed out. He watched the tragedy unfold with a numb sort of detachment. That's what you did on Earth; people died and you kept going as long as you could. The apathy was almost genetic after centuries of breeding the trait through necessity.

"Stiles?" Allison called gently.

"I'm fine. This is the sort of thing I prefer to internalize though so..."

"Do- Do you need anything? Or sit down?" Scott asked dimly.

"No, I prefer causing a scene on my own terms. Don't get me wrong, this is like a black hole turning to prostitution level of suck. But have you been on Earth? We were never meant to survive; I just always expected to go with it." With a sigh Stiles stretched out his spine and reserved himself with poise Peter didn't think possible of a dirty little Earth kid. "But in the spirit of survival... Do you guys still need an engineer?"

Scott nearly tripped over himself of welcoming Stiles to the crew.


	2. Chapter 2

"Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out," Peter quoted from the door of the engine room.

"Criss Jami; that's an old one."

"It suits you," replied the man. "Scott thinks you've been killing yourself in here the past week."

"I've been enjoying myself. Neutrino Lattice man; I have no words," Stiles told him as his fingers flew across the keyboard.

"What are you working on right now?"

"A few things actually," Stiles answered. "The big one is B.O.I.D.'s logic, intuition, and accessibility upgrades. The biggest one; the energy output this ship can create but doesn't want to tell me about. This core can put out 10^45 joules of energy like a sneeze. I mean when you guys told me you puttered in from a drift on the edge of the Andromeda Galaxy I assumed you guys had been traveling a year or two. A good ship, a really good ship can clear around 15,000 light years in a day. Your average ship can clear about 10,000. This ship can clear about 50,000. And I have no clue how it works at full power. I have no idea how this ship isn't being ripped to shreds or atomized at these speeds. Its put together wrong but just right enough."

"Don't you have the schematics?"

"Part of it, enough to fix something if it breaks. But if you ask me to explain how we're traveling at such impossible speeds, I couldn't tell you. The energy re-routes are my biggest clue, the way the engineer had them wired was wrong. I tried putting them right and lost functionality in the drive. This thing wasn't finished. Anything past 5.9 and you compromise hull integrity by ten percent for every factor of one. The shields barely stand up to the speed. I can't get over the feeling were using this ship wrong and it is driving me insane. I need the files on this ship, schematics, documents, and even troubleshooting software. Its an ongoing process though. Everything is classified and hidden within Boyd's interface."

"If you were to find what you need; you could get it operational?" 

"Totally, I mean the schematics are the instructions. The work is already done. It's just parts and labor from there," Stiles' answered as he climbed on top of a desk and pulled himself to the second level of the engine room to measure the levels in the AP tanks. "I hate waiting, working slower where I could be working faster. This ship needs a lot of TLC but man is he ever worth it."

"Come have lunch with me. I'll cook for you. Something you've never had before," he invited. Stiles looked torn. Everybody raved about Peter's cooking but the man never seemed compelled to cook for anybody but himself.

"You want to cook for me?"

"I like you and you're too skinny. Besides, it'll drive everybody nuts," Peter said.

"Will this food you speak of be fried?" Upon coming aboard the ship, Stiles had gone absolutely batty over fried food. On Earth cooking oil wasn't a supply necessary for survival. Food come in the form of cans, dehydrated rations, and the occasional perishable or two that would slip under the radars of commerce.

"It will now."

"Deal," he declared and dropped his data-pad where he stood.

\------

"What did you do to learn about ships while on Earth?" Asked Peter as he carefully monitored the onions set to sautee on the oven. Stiles was watching him carefully, no doubt cataloguing his every action. Were Scott or any of the other apt to do the same, he too might have cooked for them. They were much too content to sit around like fat little hens waiting to round and be plucked.

"A lot of things; the spacers were usually willing to part with a few data-pads or hopelessly broken electronics. I used to try and get two of the same item broken in different ways. I'd juice them up with homemade batteries and just stare at them until I figured out which parts weren't working right, what they did, how they could be replaced. My dad used to say I was staring the answer out of it," he laughed. "I just liked to figure things out."

"Was it because you hoped to see space one day?" Peter pressed.

"I was going to build a ship," what a childish fantasy that had been. "We would have settled somewhere safe, away from Deucalion, built up a rebellion, and crushed him. Then I realized life wasn't a movie and was hoping to be able to scrape enough together to get us to one of the human assistance settlements. I did want to see space though; who wouldn't?" The boy asked as he snuck up behind Peter and speared a fried carrot with a fork.

"Do you understand how intelligent you are Stiles? Do you have any concept of genius? Also stop hovering and slice these mushrooms if you feel like snacking," Peter ordered and Stiles happily complied.

"Um, not really? We don't measure those sorts of things on Earth. We used to until we realized it was useless and we moved on. The idea is weird... I memorized a few more facts than somebody else and I am better? I'm an engineer. Ask me to fish and I'd flounder; know what I mean?"

"That's a rather simplistic worldview isn't it?" 

"Isn't what we're doing simple? We can't fight, so we flight," Peter laughed. The witty little twerp had a point.

When lunch was ready, true to Peter's promise, every single dish was fried. He made steaks coated in a thick mushroom sauce. It was surrounded by chunks of seasoned potatoes and fried vegetables piled in glorious portions and attracting huge amounts of attention.

"I did not know food could be this way," Stiles said in a low somber voice after his first bite. "This is awesome, thank you." The man visibly puffed up and Stiles laughed. It was hard to believe an Alpha could take to heart the praise of a human.

"You're welcome."

\---------

"Alright, the good news is that we actually have most of the parts necessary for extended travel. This baby was meant to survive and there was a ton of construction equipment left on board. The bad news; it's going to need to be docked for a few days to complete the repairs. I can only assume how drift stations work in theory, but us renting a room for the weekend would probably make it back to Deucalion pretty quickly."

"They'd break light speed," Scott agreed. "We usually find a meteor with an iron core and set down for repairs. With the ship's masking technologies it makes us impossible to spot. How long would the repairs take?"

"Three days tops. The work that needs done, needs to be done on the hull."

"You're kidding right? You dry dock a ship to work on the hull. One tiny little pebble will end you."

"Yeah, on a crappy freighter or cargo ship, maybe. But the Equitas was built for this kind of thing. The sensors are fine tuned enough to pick up a speck of sand. I could set them to alert me to any harmful, incoming debris. To be honest, I really want to go out there too. You guys are totally used to space, I'm not. Zero gravity kind of sounds like fun."

"It is pretty amazing out there," conceded Scott. "Unless you puke."

"Scott puked, I was there. He hurled right in his space suit and it was the greatest thing ever," snitched Jackson.

"Yeah, well you screamed like a girl when that solar storm bumped us a little too close to that singularity."

"Don't call it a singularity, call it what it was asshole. It was a black hole."

Stiles perked up at the mention of black holes. From the moment their existence was theorized and proven his people had speculated upon them endlessly. To Stiles, they were the strangest trick of the universe; the ultimate puzzle box.

"I've always been so interested in those," Stiles said. "There's old rumors on Earth we once had a station set up to study the supermassive in the center of the Milky Way. Legend goes they went nuts and just kind of... drove into it. I kind of get that urge."

"Well, we've got nothing but time and another galaxy to cross before we push out of mapped space. We'd totally have time for a quick pit stop in the middle," Scott offered.

"You're serious?"

"Yeah dude, I mean the whole point of this trip is exploration right? When we pick up Derek and this Harris guy we got nothing else to do. You're the space newbie, we've all been there and done that. If you want to see a black hole we'll take you to see a black hole," Scott said so sweetly that Stiles nearly cried. Tears had been a terribly easy thing for him to muster as of late. Much to his horror a stray escaped.

"Sorry," laughed Stiles. "You got me right in the warm and fuzzies," he explained laughing it off.

\-----------

They had three weeks left until they reached the drift and Stiles threw himself into his work intensely. He spent hours hooked into Boyd's interface and the first time seeing him do such a thing horrified the others. Implants weren't a reliable technology, they were made illegal in their infancy, and invented by a man who admitted even he was unsure to what extent they could be utilized.

Stiles' eyes would roll back in his head, his body would arch to near back break proportions, and then his central nervous system would paralyze itself... poorly. Each time he plugged in it looked like something was trying to kill him; like someone was trying to rip something from him. Every day he came closer to cracking the mysteries of the ship. Every day somebody stumbled across him, sprawled out next to a console, running numbers across screens while comatose.

When he wasn't doing that he was working furiously, welding, rewiring, and upgrading every incomplete system he could get his hands on. He could not be easily persuaded to stop. Stiles wasn't the only one working to repair the ship but none could match his speed, preternaturally gifted or not. His work aboard the Equitas was a lion's share and Peter had to get creative in talking him down. The best way to do that was getting him talking about the ship and plying him with fried foods. They were a single day's journey from the drift when Peter literally dragged the sulking young man to the galley.

"Don't look at me like that. I can't be the only one who got tired of almost stepping on you all the time," admonished Peter as he set their plates down. "Eat your damn curly fries, they're a bitch to cut."

"What are they made out of?" Stiles asked. He held one up for further examination.

"Potatoes, trust me, you'll like it," assured the wolf. Stiles took a bite and the look on his face was praise enough for Peter. Then his features became distressed. Peter didn't let it worry him, Stiles had lived a life of emotional extremes. As brilliant as he indeed was, there were a great many areas in which he was stunted; almost wild even. 

"I'm sorry I got mad at you." 

"You could be shooting holes through the hull and I'd find it justified. You've had a rough month. A little pout isn't going to hurt my feelings."

His smile was a grateful one. Peter was a really good person in those little ways people didn't notice at first. Peter didn't often talk about Earth but when he did it was just a little worm on the hook. They were vague mentions and invitations to talk lined in subtlety that could be dismissed or taken.

"You're a really good person." 

Peter was a little too touched by the statement to flirt back. He'd always been so in awe of humans and the way the worked around their strange frailty to endure. He'd helped ferry thousands of them off Earth but they'd mostly feared him. None of them had ever really spoken to him, save the little ones. They finished their meal in a companionable silence and Peter walked Stiles back to the engine room as he always did. The Earth convention of walking someone to their door was one that Peter found terribly charming. 

This night was different though. When Peter bid him good night with a growled order to actually sleep, Stiles grabbed his wrist when he turned away.

"Stiles?"

"I- uh, I just wanted you to know that the flirting and everything; I like it. I like being close to you and talking to you. Yesterday I was thinking you're really honest about that sort of thing with me and I want to be with you..." Stiles babbled.

"Honest about what?"

"Us, having sex. I- I want to, have it, sex I mean... With you. But I've never been with anybody before; I'm a type 10. I've had to hide my tactile type for most of my life and now sex is this weird and scary big deal for me. I really want to let you but I just need time. Is that alright?"

"Stiles, the Heavens fucking help you, of course it is. Look at me... your right to say no or wait, does not change with your tactile type. When I touch you, I understand your natural inclination to submit," Peter said pulling him against him at the waist. "But I know your mind is saying very much the opposite because being a type 10 is a universally terrifying experience and one I have shared with you. I'll wait for as long as you need."

"I won't make you wait forever. Promise," Stiles rasped as Peter scented the soft skin of his neck.

"Seal it with a kiss?" Asked the Alpha.

Funny how a brushing of lips could change everything.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles was absolutely bubbling with excitement when he, Lydia, and Peter took the freighter down to the drift in the little satellite system bordering Andromeda. He hadn't stopped twitching since he left the ship, which annoyed Lydia greatly. He felt like a grave yard and had the gall to smile. Nothing about his character made seemed put together proper; in fact it put her ill at ease. The worst part was how much Peter seemed to eat up the front the strange little human had created for himself. Peter had been properly convinced the boy was brave, selfless even. Lydia found him empty and heartless.

"That tears it; space is officially the most awesome place ever," Stiles exclaimed bounding off the ship.

"You might want to remind him he's not a tourist," Lydia advised.

"Technically he is. Scott suggested bringing him along because he's never seen a drift station. He's a more decent person than any of us. I don't know if you're transferring guilt onto him, or you're just not used to humans, I don't care. Get over it and stop trying to pick on the defenseless human. He'll roll over for you if you want to kick him in the ribs, but would it really make you feel better?"

Lydia thought that it might.

Peter laughed when Stiles got spooked by a large but harmless Jodori that got a bit too curious. The creature looked apologetic when Stiles high-tailed it back to them. Peter threw a friendly but possessive arm around the boy, a subtle signal to the Jodori the boy was looked after. They were the gentle giants of the quad and peace keepers with high protective instincts; Peter had ran many missions with them ferrying humans into safe zones.

"He's Jodori," Peter told Stiles. "They're a good people. Were something to happen and you ever got separated from us, your best bet would be seeking out one of their people. They're a protector class. Deucalion only has them cowed by the damage he could do to others." Peter led him to the Jodori who smiled; at least Stiles thought it was a smile. All facial expressions tended to look menacing when faced with a row full of fangs." Peter said something Stiles couldn't understand and when the Jodori answered back Peter laughed.

The hulking behemoth, mostly humanoid in shape, extended a long gray clawed hand. "Not mean scare human. Jodori ally with human. Jodori help lost human," the creature explained and Stiles took his hand almost instantly. It made Peter nervous, how terribly trusting Stiles could be.

"Ah, sorry, I was rude," said Stiles.

"No, human smart. Bad people everywhere. Stay with protect," the Jodori said in broken English. "Drift bad place."

"You make drift good," Stiles said attempting to break down the sentence into terms the Jodori could understand. The creature regarded him for a moment before digging into his trousers and producing a small paper card. "What's this?" Asked Stiles.

"Jodori always friend. Jodori give help," the giant said. "Jodori ally with human."

"Human ally with Jodori," Stiles said shoving it into the pocket of the over sized trousers he'd scavenged from one of the crew quarters reverently. This pleased the creature, who in turned patted Stiles head, and continued on his way.

"Holy. Shit." Lydia looked absolutely stunned and Peter looked only slightly less shocked.

"What?"

"Th- th- th-," Peter cut Lydia's stammering off.

"That was a high honor you were just given. That was a Jodori general. That card is his personal contact information that is offered only to those they consider themselves in a war alliance in. That wasn't a number he gave you, it was a fleet. They are honor bound to assist you with that card. They are not simply given out to strangers on a drift."

"Oh, cool. Let's go see stuff now," Stiles said. Of course he wouldn't be phased a single iota by a Jodori general. Two weeks ago they'd found out Stiles had been taking cold water showers because he had no clue any other alternative existed.

"Yeah," his bewildered looking wolf replied. "Stay close to me though," he said looping his own arm through Stiles'.

The drift station was amazing. Were it not for Peter's firm and paranoid hold on his arm; one Stiles was only indulging because the man looked so spooked, he would have been more insistent about browsing the stalls and strange little shops built high on the little drift. Instead he settled for quiet questions and subtle hints that he wished to look at something. The drift was massive and metal. There was no paint or color like one would see on Earth, from a distance it would have blended with the inky black of space were it not for the highlight of the star it orbited to help control its climate. 

"Are all drifts like this?" He yelled over the noise. The place was a constant bustle of activity. Stiles could count at least 50 different aliens he'd never seen before. Some of them were so far from humanoid he was almost thankful for the restrictive grip Peter had on his arm.

"It depends on their purpose. This is a glorified rest stop, a place for smugglers, slavers, nomads, and traders. The other ports aren't nearly so entertaining."

"What's that blue stuff?" Asked Stiles pointing out a glowing blue drink a red skinned woman was enjoying.

"Poisonous to humans," Peter answered smoothly.

"That's disappointing."

"I can fix that. Wait here with Lydia," the man said.

He felt like the fool when he came bounding back with a neon blue, glowing drink but the look on Stiles' face was worth it. 

"Peter..."

"It's called a Nebula's Middle. Drink. It. Slowly." This time it was Stiles who looped his arm through Peter's. He wanted to kiss him, just a bit, but wasn't sure if that was untoward behavior. Stiles tried the fizzy, glowing concoction and laughed in delight. Once in his mouth it began to bubble and fizz in a veritable cornucopia of flavors, none of which he recognized, but all of which he loved.

"Wh- Its like a million different flavors at once. How in the world..." Stiles didn't think he'd ever grow used to food. Sometimes the flavors and sensations were overwhelming. Sometimes it became a miserably depressing thing. He thought of all the foods he had eaten, all the things he'd drank, all a far cry from dirty water, bread, and good will dried rations. He thought of the kids and how they'd never get to try any of this.

"C'mon," Peter said. Stiles was jolted from his melacholy. "We'll be late meeting Derek and Harris."

The Hale family, as it turned out, came from good stock. Derek was a broodier and only slightly less quaffed version of Peter. They did not look alike, but they had the same pleasing figure, penetrating eyes, and strong jaws. The clearest difference in the relatives were their social skills.

"You're the new engineer?" Asked Derek.

"That's what they say."

"What are your credentials?"

"Getting you off this drift 2 1/2 months early?" Stiles sassed. "Otherwise I got nothing but good old fashioned gumption."

"And free run of the ship," Lydia sniped much to Stiles' distress. Derek just shrugged.

"Is the ship working?"

"Yes," the Banshee answered in a grudging tone.

"Then let him run all over it. I can't fix the damn thing." Stiles liked Derek almost instantly after that. He was more like Peter than Stiles had thought. 

Everything went smoothly and the day turned into one of the best ones in Stiles' short life. He was elated, high on novel experience and the kind attention he received from everybody on the station while loading. Peter kept him on a relatively short leash, he was no stranger to the lightness in humans that attracted other species, but he was also no stranger to how much sick people were willing to pay to bottle that light and wrap it in chains. 

Still short as the leash was, his smile never faltered until they were preparing for take-off, and one of Deucalion's slave ships pulled in for a refuel. The smile slipped right off his face and Peter sensed a fresh wash of deep grief that Stiles had been keeping so tightly buried. Both Derek and Harris looked up sharply, Peter held up a silencing hand. To be honest he'd been waiting for Stiles to snap, and would feel relieved when he did.

\-----------------

"So, you and that kid are looking a little cozy," Derek commented as Peter packed a strange assortment of useless miscellany into empty fruit containers.

"I like him," Peter said with a grin. "He's cute isn't he?"

"He definitely didn't look like a kid that deserved the Ice Queen's wrath. What's wrong with Lydia?"

"Deaton thinks all the death on Earth is still an echo in her senses. Its taking her senses awhile to purge the death and Stiles stands at the center of it all. I do not believe in coincidence, not in this universe. We were hobbled with access to the engines classified to prevent even the ship's AI from accessing them. We must have hit 7 or 8 stations between that Andromeda station and Earth. I heard that name more than any other and some people look surprised when it crossed their lips."

"I've been starting to believe in coincidence less and less myself. I saw what he did in the engine room on partial schematics. Of all the places, at all the times, you guys wandered to Earth, found a stone cold freakin' genius, and saved him from a violent, horrible death through sheer coincidence. I listen to you sometimes; I always thought you were right to be suspect of the universe."

"I think it's old magic. I think she's pissed and I think she's got a plan. We could very well be her pawns."

"You're still spouting that old magic nonsense?"

"I believe the stories, yes. Human civilization had magic on it even before their people branched into space. It may be 8822 A.D.E. on our calendar but man kind had millions upon millions of years of isolation for old magic to flourish. We are of them. From the old wolves and old magic, not through selective breeding and genetic tweaks as Deucalion would have us believe. The humans brought us magic and we destroyed it. What's left of it is pissed; it has to be."

Peter dialed up a couple service drones that Stiles had gotten operational and had them send the boxes to the engine room. If Stiles wanted to talk after that, he could find Peter. Stiles never came but the next morning Peter found a note taped to the outside of the door.

I had to have a service droid send this. I got drunk. Probably a bad idea to give blow jobs drunk.

The messy scrawl was a clear indicator of how drunk Stiles was when this was written; otherwise Peter had no shame in admitting he would have made a beeline for the engine room. Instead he stored the note away to tease him with at a later date and was set to wipe it from mind. Luckily they had other things to worry about, like securely landing on a fucking meteor so Stiles could work on it while hurtling through the void.

They landed safely. It was an easy enough feat for a ship like the Equitas to pull off. AG frields secured the landing equipment to the meteor and tethering spikes were driven in for good measure. Stiles had been right about the ship being made for this kind of work but it hadn't made Scott any less worried.

"We're sending you out with a second set of hands. I can't beging to stress how unbelievably dangerous this is. Anything could happen or nothing at all," Scott said.

"It'll be fine," Stiles said as he fetched the helmet of his EVA suit. I need less than a day on the outside of the hull. The maneuverability in these suits are amazing."

Derek was elected the second most capable pair of hands Stiles could have out there. Scott would have been the more obvious choice were it not for the fact that next to Stiles, Scott knew the most about the bridge capabilities. None of the spacers he traveled with were incompetent by any stretch of the word. Most of what made Stiles useful was his implant and speed. Most everybody aboard the ship was capable of handling the work. It was nice, the ease they accepted him with. 

He wasn't prepared for what the world turned into when his boots magnetized and the airlock opened in front of them. Speed was an odd thing when met with no real force. The meteor was sailing along at over 40,000 miles per hours and it was better than light speed, his leisure tour through space. Endless miles stretched before this rock. Eternity became such a very real thing. The last star would burn out before this rock reached the end of space; provided it stayed in tact.

"Amazing," Stiles sighed.

"The best part is it never gets old," Derek said nudging him forward. He gave the kid a chance to gawk a little before making their way to the nanobot access that had been jammed in the final conflict the ship had faced. When Stiles got a good look at it, something didn't match up.

"Can you pull up the schematic for the HND?" Stiles asked lifting the access panels. Derek handed him the data pad.

"These wires don't show up anywhere on the schematic for the HND. They're not even connected to it, just bypassing it to make it look like they are," he muttered. "I can't use a scanner but I wonder what the odds are these bad boys move in a straight line. If this was something they wanted hidden, they'd have made the areas the wires occupied as compact as possible."

It was an odd thing to watch Stiles work. Derek couldn't see a single difference in the panels, even with the schematics up, but Stiles had spotted it on sight. He spent two hours repairing the HND and moving back and forth trying to trace the source of the wires. Stiles worked tirelessly realigning the access pipe and repairing the wiring that carried the repair instructions to the nanobots.

"I really want to find the source of these wires," Stiles told him. "But ripping open the hull is definitely a dry dock job and totally impractical. This ship is a freakin' Rubik's cube," Stiles cursed. 

"Maybe you aren't asking yourself the right questions. Maybe it isn't meant for us to access. If you have to rip open the hull it might be a job for the nanobots instead." The look Derek got in return was a combination of priceless and the dawning realization he might have just wasted 2 hours trying to decipher the obvious.

"My Dad was right. I've got no common sense," Stiles said. He moved to rub his hands over his face, something he'd gotten from his father, when he realized he still wore a helmet and became even more hopelessly frustrated with himself. 

"You've got no oxygen either. We should get an early lunch. The zero G is murder on your back when you get back under normal gravity. We've only got 4 more hours until this monster hits a bright spot."

They worked diligently after that. It took down to the last minute to finish the repairs and Derek was impressed with the speed and intuition with which Stiles worked. As it turned out the nanobots were so high functioning once programmed and dispersed it made them obsolete. It took hours to do. Billions of the little guys had to be separately programmed and instructed; how that was done was at the engineers discretion and Stiles took hours in making sure the job was done to perfection.

"You're really good at this," Derek said as he came back from his final round of monitoring the repairs. The most minor damage had already been repaired and the larger problems were close to being done. Stiles had programmed them beautifully.

"I was obsessed with nanobots on Earth. I never thought I'd ever see a single one up close. Deucalion didn't want little tricks like these guys existing. What a shameful and sorry son of a bitch he is," Stiles said as he closed up the panel.

Derek could easily see what his uncle saw in Stiles. The kid didn't stop, not for a moment. They entered the airlock and Stiles never even broke his stride moving for the engine room. His EVA suit was in pieces down the hall and he was in a maintenance tunnel before anybody could suggest a late lunch. Peter didn't see him again until later that evening when Stiles' showed up in the maintenance bay for the missile cannons.

"I'm sorry about that note," Stiles blurted the moment their eyes locked and Peter burst into laughter.

"I warned you to drink that stuff slowly. Don't be sorry though; it gave me something nice to think about in the shower at any rate," Peter answered smoothly and Stiles blushed.

"All that stuff, Scott told me it was your idea to try to collect anything left in the debris."

"There deserved to be something left of Earth." 

"Oh wow," said Stiles with a shaky voice and watery smile. "I didn't realize how much I needed to hear that. Everybody says sorry, but that's all they say, y'know? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. But they're not sorry for Earth, they're sorry for me." Stiles took a calming breath that did little to calm.

"I don't feel sorry for you. I'm angry for you and angry for Earth. But mostly you just impress me Stiles, you astound me even. I think the reason you're here with us is because if anything was going to survive Earth it had to be you. I know you feel guilty but if I can help you feel proud instead, I would. I don't feel sorry for you Stiles, I can't. You are proof Earth still has hope."

Stiles' knees gave out and he collapsed to the floor. Broken little sobs started to escape his throat and he tried desperately to hold them in. Peter sank to the floor and drew Stiles into a hug.

"Let it out you idiot," Peter said rubbing slow circles into the nape of his neck.

"If I do, I'll see them," Stiles whispered.

"See who?"

"The kids. Their faces when it happened. Sometimes I wake up and they're yelling for me. They probably thought I'd come for them until the very last second," Stiles told him and his voice was laced with trauma and bleak despair.

"Your parents, when the Alphas did something bad to you, did you blame them?" Asked Peter.

"No."

"So what makes you think those kids would? If they did call your name its because they wanted to be with you, not blame you. Don't blame yourself Stiles."

Stiles sobbed like a woman. He broke and every compartmentalized and tamped down emotion flooded outward. Peter's chest was soaked with tears by the time the kid cried himself to sleep. Peter sat enraged, against the wall, Stiles sprawled across him with a tear streaked face in uneasy sleep. He looked forward to the distance they were putting between themselves and Deucalion.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Alright, I don't put notes in my stuff very often but I wanted to clear up a few things. I'm worried people might think Lydia's antagonism towards Stiles is out of character. This is because I'm trying to take what I know of their pasts and properly retool it here in my new little universe. Lydia wasn't necessarily MEAN to Stiles when the show first began. But we do know her character basically ignored him for years until all the crazy wolfiness. I am not a Lydia hater by any means. Her character will be developed.
> 
> Also, look forward to more tags and more pairings being created. I didn't want to commit to anything when I only have the first half written out. I'm posting as I edit chapter by chapter. BUT there'll probably be a mass edit of the first few introductory chapters when I get more comfortable with the subject matter. I can't stress how incredibly difficult it is to write sci-fi. There's a reason you don't see much of it in fan fiction, so I'm trying my very clumsy, inexperienced hand at it. Thanks for everyone who has been enjoying this and left the kind words. If there's anybody who can give me advice science wise please feel free to drop me a line. I could use the help.

All the repairs prohibiting flight were finished in under 48 hours without incident and Peter was thankful for it. Stiles break the night previous had left him shaky, stressed, and heavily embarrassed. As emotional as Stiles tended to be, they were all emotions Stiles wasn't ashamed of. When the nose of the ship finally pointed towards uncharted space and they'd gone officially on their way, Scott proposed a celebration. Stiles was thankful for the distraction.

"I can't believe we're finally on our way," Scott sighed happily.

"What do you think we'll see out there?" Asked Allison.

"Everything but Deucalion's ugly mug," Jackson cheered lifting his drink and the others followed suit. 

Stiles had never been to a real party. The ease of conversation, the half-buzzed smiles on everyone's lips, and the easy laughter did a great deal to calm his frayed nerves. He'd been on the edge of a panic attack since his embarrassing night spent with Peter.

"I still don't see the wisdom of going a week out of our way to see that super massive," Lydia said.

"We don't have to. There's one in the center of every galaxy. We could find another," Stiles said. He dealt with Lydia's animosity so beautifully. Lydia often took advantage of the fact that Stiles would concede anything to please. Luckily, it was Scott that intervened on his behalf.

"Don't worry about it Stiles. Out of the way doesn't mean much. We don't have any place to be," assured their Captain. Peter was always impressed by his natural diplomacy. He had a way of letting people know they were being out of line, while smoothing out a situation that wasn't easy to muster. It left Stiles assured and Lydia with barely bruised feelings.

"You've never seen a singularity before?" Harris asked.

"No, I've only been in space a little over a month," Peter could see the quick realization hit the man's eyes. 

"I'm always jealous of anybody seeing space with fresh eyes," the Ashuran said.

"The best part is the research equipment is almost all calibrated. We can do science-y things," Stiles said.

"You're such a professional," Peter joked.

"We don't have to be professional," said Allison solemnly. "We've got a big ass ship." 

It was rare to hear Allison speak in such terms. It had them all laughing like teenagers. It did Scott's heart well to see them all laughing together. He wanted them all to get along so badly. Lydia was trying to push Stiles out of their circle and off of the ship with a ferocity that scared him. He'd set B.O.I.D. to watching her and the rest of the ship to keeping them separated. If he had to choose between the pair, which he didn't want to, the choice would be an easy one. Stiles was integral to the ship. He was the only one of them fit to work on the engine and on B.O.I.D.

Peter's mood was a good one, enough so that about an hour later he scuttled off with Stiles to the galley. The kitchen area had been smelling magical that day and Scott could only hope they came back with the food that made it smell that way. 

"Those two are going to bone; soon," said Jackson. Allison almost choked on her pop.

"Excellent observational skills as always Mr. Whittemore," Deaton deadpanned. 

"You shouldn't tease them. They like each other. It's cute," Allison defended when her windpipe had cleared. She smiled gratefully at the circles Scott rubbed into her back. Lydia snorted inwardly. After everything that happened it certainly hadn't take Stiles very long to get his feet under the table.

"Tease Peter, he deserves it," reassured Derek.

"He's been good to that poor kid," Allison said. "Don't you dare tease him for that."

"He saw it happen? Earth blowing? I apologize if that's intrusive," Harris said.

"It's not, not really. You're bound to find out sooner or later. It's not a long story or anything. This ship was hobbled, we searched three systems, and 8 drifts trying to find someone who was qualified to work on this ship. I'm sure you can tell not just anyone can come aboard this thing and figure out their way around without some serious credentials. Earth was the last place we stopped after hearing his name a dozen times. He had this crazy reputation all over the quad for being able to fix anything," Scott explained in beginning the story.

"That's fairly impressive given his background," Harris commented.

"It really is. We didn't really believe it, so we only made our way back to Earth when that was our last option. We find him and he gets the engine up and running in 3 days. Three freakin' days it takes him to pull classified partial schematics for an experimental engine and get it up to 70%. If he'd finished half an hour earlier he'd be dead right now. I tried to stall him, keep him on the ship as long as I could, and even tried to get Peter to talk him into coming with us. I was the one who called him from the med-bay because I couldn't figure out how to work the stupid sensors. I should have known... There were rad readings. I called him right onto that damn bridge and he saw everything."

Nobody had realized Scott carried that kind of guilt.

"You know he doesn't think of it that way," Allison assured. 

"That only makes me feel worse."

\----------

"What are these?"

"That's a turnip," Peter told him. Stiles took a bite and made a face. "Not a fan?"

"They're almost as bad as beets," he said removing a pan from the oven to be cooling while Peter finished up dicing tomatoes for the salsa.

"Beets are an affliction upon this universe. I told you you wouldn't like them," he said. 

"Hey, everything and everyone deserves a fair shake," Stiles said. Peter smiled at that and it made Stiles' stomach flutter. It was a weird how much he liked being able to make Peter smile. 

"When you say things like that it makes me a bit angry at the universe."

"For what?"

"For not giving you everything you ever wanted," the man said pressing a slow but playful kiss on his cheek. It had Stiles catching his arms when Peter turned.

"Kiss me?" Stiles asked. 

"You don't ever need to ask permission for that," Peter assured him and ducked in for a kiss.

Stiles kissed clumsy but on a quick learning curve. While he was uncertain of what to do with his mouth, his hands were a different story. Peter loved the feeling of Stiles' fingers against his face. He liked the way Stiles' hands traveled from his face, stroking down his neck and stopping at his arms when Peter amped the kiss up by pulling Stiles closer. His lips were hard against Stiles, this grip was possessive and tight, and he kissed like Stiles supposed a man might. Peter backed him into a wall and they necked like teenagers until the timer went off. They broke away from each other reluctantly. Stiles touched his lips in bewilderment and it made Peter laugh.

"Was that your first real kiss?" Stiles nodded. "Good."

Stiles tried to shake off his daze before they made it back to the obs deck. It was hard to be near Peter and not feel completely besotted. He wondered, hoped, and worried about Peter feeling the same way. He wanted Peter to want him more than anything. His tactile type just made everything so confusing; not that he wasn't baffled by people at the best of times.

They re-entered the obs deck to cheers. Scott had begged Stiles to sweet talk Peter into cooking for the party. It had taken no such manipulations. Stiles simply asked Peter and he'd complied. Nobody missed how disheveled the two looked or how long they'd taken to simply reheat a few trays of food in a ship made for thousands.

"Thank you so much Peter," Allison said biting into a popper.

"Ditto," Jackson agreed with his mouth full of stuffed mushrooms.

As the night wound on and the booze flowed freely even Lydia's ramrod straight demeanor loosened and twisted enough to have a good time. As it turned out, Stiles and Allison were the universe's most hilarious drunks.

"We should play a game," slurred Allison.

"I like games. The universe is kind of like checkers. You get kinged, jumped, moved forward just a little, or never leave the back row."

"Ohhh, let's not play checkers. Haha, I know let's play Tactician!" Allison said.

"What's that?" Asked Stiles. Peter answered before Stiles could see the shock on the other's faces. It was too easy for them to forget how little Stiles knew of the universe.

"It's a linked data-pad game. You start out with a certain number of territories, men, and weapons. It's a game of chance and strategy. You wage war based on a range of actions you can choose from determined by an automated roll feature. It doesn't need much explaining to jump into. The object of the game is to simply take all the territories for yourself."

"Can we play that?" Stiles asked.

"YES!" Allison roared and went to go gather the data-pads. She only stumbled twice on her way out the door.

In the end everybody decided to play. Peter explained the features to Stiles and his face got downright devilish.

"What the fuck? Mars doesn't have bio-warfare options," Jackson cursed when Stiles sent him a very virulent version of the Feryn Plague.

"It does if you ally it with Parthec," Stiles declared. He'd lured Jackson quite smoothly into a trap, leaving part of his troops exposed to a vicious attack and using his turn to make a strategic alliance instead. On his next turn he'd devastated Jackson's territory on Cartari with a plague.

"Hahaha, Stiles got you good man," Scott laughed as Jackson was forced to cede his territory and his remaining men defected to Stiles' already impressive troops.

"You should have gone after Peter," Lydia said primly as she keyed in her strategy. "His moon base is horribly defended."

"See you'd think that," Peter said and watched as Lydia launched a salvo of missiles behind his base to scatter the men. On her next turn she'd stage a takeover that would amass her the entirety of Peter's defected troops with minimal fatalities. At least she thought it would. "But I think you vastly underestimate just how much damage a Jodori alliance can do," Peter said as the missiles were successfully intercepted and a counter-salvo sent that weakened the shields around her Daraban base.

"See, this is crap, they've allied and are ganging up on us," Jackson pointed out. "They haven't attacked each other once."

"That isn't against the rules," said Peter.

"Well this oughta make you feel better," Scott said aiming a defensive laser at Peter's moon base and firing.

"Son of a bitch."

The game got dirty after that. Stiles used his turn to retaliate against Scott and Peter used his to finish off one of his bases and claim it. Peter advanced on Jackson and crushed them while Allison did a good job defending her bases. They let her do that and exhaust her resources. Harris was a trickier one to beat. Fighting fire with fire Stiles attacked his civilian populace with the same bio-warfare agents that Harris favored. On Peter's turn, with his soldiers heavily scattered, and trying to undo chaos damage and stole those territories. In the end Stiles had taken some of Allison and Jackson's bases and Peter took Scott's and Harris's. Deaton and Lydia held their own claiming a few bases as well. In the end it came down to four, Deaton, Stiles, Peter, and Lydia. Watching them play was just as entertaining.

"Are missiles shaped like dicks because that's the most aerodynamic design? More often than not if something can kill you, it's usually shaped like a dick," Stiles said firing a salvo into Lydia's base. "When women invent something they never make it look like a vagina," he continued on slurring. 

"I know you're drunk... But that was a really good point," said Allison. "You blew my mind."

"And I blew up Deaton's base," Peter said. Eventually the man was eliminated.

"All your base are belong to me!" Stiles said blasting completely through her shields on Darabas. Peter could smell the irritation on Lydia. She didn't want Stiles to win and he could smell one of her dirtier tactics a mile away. Lydia rolled a 12.

"You should have been paying more attention to your own," she snapped. "Say hello to a level 12 devastation," Lydia said targeting a mantle breaker at Earth and blowing it to pieces. You could have heard a needle drop in the room. Stiles had quietly snatched up Earth as a territory and everybody had left it alone. Jackson had given everybody Rabelan Syphilis on Earth in good humor but that had been it. Peter's eyes went red. To his surprise Stiles' went redder and he slammed the data-pad down so hard on the table it cracked in half.

"There is nothing... NOTHING good about you. I tried to find it, I really did. I thought you didn't like me; and I could live with that. But this... There's something rotten and evil and wrong inside of you. You are vile," he said with a tremulous voice. It wasn't an anger that had ever been characteristic of his behavior in the time they'd known him. It was enough to shock something in Lydia, though Peter couldn't tell what. Stiles stormed off the obs deck. Their eyes tracked him to the door and then back to Lydia.

It was Allison that broke the silence with a vicious, open handed blow to Lydia's cheek.

"Allison!" Scott reprimanded.

"She deserved it," Allison said her voice low and tremulous. Allison had never risen a hand to anybody in her life and now she looked ready to kill.

"He'll kill us all!" Lydia yelled.

"And I'll kill you if you come within 50 feet of him again. I'm not kidding Lydia. I'll really rip your head off," Peter growled and there wasn't a single person who didn't believe him when he stalked out the door and after Stiles.

\-------

Peter found Stiles in the engine room, a white knuckled grip on the second level bars. The beat of his heart was violent and his lungs were taking in air he had no control over. Peter moved behind him, hugged him tightly around the waist. 

"Why does she hate me?" He said and his breaths grew uneven, his heartbeat violent.

"Don't think about her, focus on breathing. Your heartbeat is bad Stiles, you need to calm down," Peter told him and the Stiles tried for Peter's sake more than his own. He couldn't.

"I feel like I'm dying," Stiles told him.

"B.O.I.D. have one of the service drones bring me an oxygen mask."

"Already on the way."

"I'm sorry," Stiles gasped out. "Wanted to... hurt her. Sorry sorry sorry," Peter shushed him. Tried to keep him calm until the drone reached him and Peter bade Stiles to breathe in the pure oxygen.

"That's better," Peter said when he listened to Stiles' breathing begin to even out. "Does that happen often Stiles?" He asked of the anxiety attacks.

"Yeah... Got them since my mom died... Don't know what it is." Peter couldn't imagine how terrifying something like that must be. Losing air, consciousness, and sanity in one fell swoop and having no idea what caused it.

"It's a panic attack. They're nothing that can hurt you but they can scare the living hell out of you," Peter said.

"Oh."

"You want me to help you to your room?" Stiles nodded.

"Doesn't this annoy you?" Stiles asked as Peter opened the door to his room.

"Why would it annoy me?"

"I'm a mess, I'm kind of needy, I talk too much, and I'm kind of terrified of sex. How could you not be completely frustrated with me?" He asked in total candor.

"I like your mess," Peter told him sincerely. "I want you to need me more, I think the way you talk is beautiful, and I'm a grown man Stiles. Not a human either. Sex is secondary to the heart for Alphas," Peter told Stiles. "I like you, right now, as you are. Sex was never part of the equation so how would lacking it make me like you any less?"

"Will you stay with me tonight?" Stiles asked.

"Of course."

Looking back, Stiles figured that was the moment he fell hard for Peter. The man slipped into his bed without hesitation and wrapped his arm around Stiles. Stiles wondered if loving his arms so much was some kind of fetish. Peter had beautiful arms, next to his eyes his arms were Stiles' favorite part of him. His hands didn't roam, they held him with respect and absolutely no intent. The few clumsy fumblings that Stiles had had never left Stiles feeling respected. Sex had always been this insidiously disgusting thing to him when he made the mistake of liking someone. His shy kisses and need to take things slow had never been tolerated on Earth. Stiles didn't blame them. Humans were tactile type 7s, they were sexual creatures to their cores. Stiles was a type 10 and trusting someone to be intimate and good to him was a terrifying notion. 

Despite his racing thoughts, Stiles slept easy that night. An Alpha at his back made it hard not to feel safe; especially when that Alpha was Peter.


	5. Chapter 5

An awkward week passed. Stiles continued sorting through the thousands of scattered files on The Equitas. He also spent a great deal of time speaking with B.O.I.D. The upgrades he'd managed to implement made the AI seem almost human.

_"How are you feeling today Stiles?"_ The AI asked. Boyd, as he preferred to consider him, asked that of him every morning. 

"I'm doing great. How about you big guy?" Stiles asked. It was the truth. Since the incident with Lydia, he'd been sharing his bed with Peter. Waking up like that felt great. He'd always shared a bed on Earth, something he'd been missing intensely. Peter had somehow guessed at the comfort it brought him and began showing up every night. They were getting intensely close.

_"My systems are in excellent shape."_

"Awesome. I'm going to plug into your interface and dig out some more files. Is that alright?"

_"Of course it is. You don't require my permission when you wish to access my systems."_

"No way man. You have to have more respect for yourself. You deserve to have some say with what's going on inside you. You're my friend Boyd. I don't want to go messing with your insides without your permission; your opinion matters man," Stiles said.

_"What I mean is that you always have my permission."_

"Awww, that was so sweet," said Stiles. He was terribly touched. Boyd recognized the expression and thanks to Stiles' work some of the meaning behind it.

_"In the time I've spent observing organic life forms, I have compiled a list of qualities I consider worth emulating. You have many of those qualities. I trust you implicitly."_

"Dude, I swear I'm going to make you whole again. You freakin' deserve it," Stiles said connecting his tether to the engineering console. Stiles plugged in and their conversation became a silent one.

It was not an easy trick finding and hacking the scattered files. The engineer occupying the station before Stiles had been absolutely brilliant. She'd made the Equitas virtually impossible to regain control of without the implicit permissions of the AI. If the AI were to be deleted the ship would become a brick and the information lost forever with Boyd. 

All of it came down to luck. It could have taken months, it could have taken minutes. Stiles wanted some kind of progress. Lydia hated him and he desperately wanted that not to be the case. He wanted to prove that he was useful, that he could pull his own weight in keeping everybody safe and alive. The week was a long one, he kept a steady headache from using his implant too much, and his spine was on fire from all the positions he'd find himself in upon waking.

By the end of the week he was frustrated, angry, and frightened. Lydia had no attention of apologizing and big as the ship was their paths would occasionally have to cross. It was necessary to keeping the ship functional. He turned into another corridor and found only a single file there. Upon opening it, the entire week became worth it.

"Oh shit," he gasped. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit... Boyd transfer this file straight to my data-pad and log me out."

He sprung off the floor like a spring, yanking himself back on the still attached wire and giving himself a nasty sting. Cursing he yanked it out, tripped going for the data pad, and banged his head hard against the floor.

"Ow," he moaned climbing up from the floor and grabbing the pad. He treated it with much more care than he treated himself. He ran all the way to the bridge, his twitchy and over-excited body sending him tumbling ass over elbow onto the bridge.

"Jesus Stiles, are you okay?" Asked Scott rushing to help him up.

"Yeah, yeah, I am freakin' awesome. I found something," he said his breath picking up velocity. "I don't- I can't... Shit. Hang on," Stiles said sinking to the floor and attempting to regain his breath while handing Scott the pad. "Absolute matter... that's how it does it. Absolute matter... My brain is exploding."

"Oh my God you are such a nerd," Scott laughed until he got a good look at the read out. "Holy crap."

"What? What is it?" Jackson asked with Harris following closely behind. They seemed to come in a pair since Harris had joined the ship. Stiles tried to calm himself.

"Absolute matter... It's this idea that you can super-cool atoms down enough that they can be attracted together to form one dense super atom. See most matter isn't solid. It is filled with huge holes at a microscopic level. You could put a germ in an air tight box and it could slip right out. But these atoms are so dense that they don't have that issue. They're absolutely solid, hence absolute matter," Stiles explained.

"So what does that mean for us?" Jackson asked.

"Um, I suck at explaining things. So the biggest trick space plays on you is making you think things move. But relative to space itself everything is standing still relative to space's movement. The expansion of it is what gives the illusion that something is moving. When you see a meteor, it is not moving, but rather being pulled relative to the movement of space but the object itself is still. We were in the same boat until light speed was broken all those years ago and the real trick was to find a better way. And this ship did that."

"How?"

"With multi-dimensional occupation. This ship can condense every part of itself safely, into absolute matter while keeping us safe and sound inside a separate dimension. This ship isn't putting out all those joules of energy because it needs it. Its putting out all that energy so you can zip to the edge of the freakin' universe and back in time for tea. There's a lot more to it than that of course... but that's the gist. Oh God... I can't breathe," Stiles rambled without stopping for air. 

"Would it even be safe to work on something like this?" Asked Peter from behind him.

"I don't know. This is some pretty bare bones information. We've got pretty infinite energy as we're traveling if we never push past six-two. I'm going to have to admit to being really, really intimidated by this. This really just melted my brain," Stiles said and they would have laughed were it now for how seriously perturbed he looked.

"Why don't you take it easy on the engine room today? Actually, yeah, I'm pulling rank and telling you to take a break and clear your head. That goes for all of us. Right now we're safe, on our way, and we've all been working non-stop. We need a break, all of us."

"I need a drink," Stiles agreed.

"I'll join you," Peter said throwing a casual arm around his shoulders and leading him off the bridge. Lydia had been standing wordlessly in the corner and Peter preferred to keep their time sharing space short. Peter was growing dangerously possessive for Stiles, a trait in Alpha's and especially of his level and tactile type. Derek, as well as Jackson and Scott, recognized it better than anybody. He could even tell by their scents the two had recently began sharing a bed more often than not.

Derek had realized fairly quickly that Peter was in love with Stiles. It had been a shock, to say the least. It wasn't that Peter hadn't been known for being affectionate with his lovers. He was in fact extremely selective with his lovers and proud of the conquest. His affection for Stiles on the other hand was quiet, understated, and respectful. They shared meals together and shared a witty repartee that made television banter seem pale in comparison.

He didn't think anybody realized what kind of serious danger Lydia was putting herself in. Or what kind of damage that explosion must have done to turn her into this person he didn't recognize when he came back.

"Can I talk to you?" He asked Deaton. The man was a Druec, a culture that prided knowledge of life and nature above all things. Surely he had noticed what was wrong with Lydia, or the shape that the animosity put Peter in over Stiles. Derek was repressed on a good day and even he had noticed.

"Of course. You can join me in my office," Deaton said leading the way.

"I thought Scott said none of us were supposed to be working?"

"I hardly consider what I do work. I enjoy it far too much. Besides I personally tend the extinct plants in the botanical gardens. It is absolutely vital some of those flowers survive. The gardens are designed to sustain a group of 20 with oxygen and minimal enough power for heat and light should life support ever fail. It has its own generator. I imagine it was a design to protect ranking officers after the crew jettisoned in the event of an emergency. The design of this ship becomes more and more brilliant as each day goes by."

"Leave it to Scott. Anybody else would have died launching a distress beacon in Alpha territory. He finds a great big ship."

"They say that if there is a God he protects fools. It makes a great deal of sense. In the tarot the fool is actually a card that means endless possibilities for those foolish enough to try."

"That's Scott in a nutshell."

"I firmly believe that young man will lead us to great things. He doesn't give up. He is the most relentless, stubborn, and determined young man I've ever met in my life."

"Well if you notice all that about Scott; I wonder what you've noticed with Lydia?" Derek said. Deaton looked at him for a moment, stopping just outside the door to his gardens.

"She's not been herself lately. It isn't her fault. Lydia had no idea what she was until her abilities manifested. It has been extremely difficult for her to adjust and I imagine she's harboring more guilt than anything on Earth. She feels every single one of those angry, dying souls and it is eating away at her insides. I've been looking for a way to help her but I'm coming up empty."

"Has anybody tried actually talking to her? What Lydia did to Stiles during Tactician... That wasn't the Lydia I know. She absolutely killed that poor kid. And have you seen Peter lately? He'll rip her head off over him. That is not an idle threat. He's gone full blown crazy over Stiles. He won't see reason when it comes to the guy, not as defenseless as he is compared to everybody on this ship."

"She's shut everybody out. The only one of us Lydia ever remotely bonded with was Jackson and that was just for a brief fling. She is a proud and very private woman and not open to reason herself until we figure out a way to help clear her head."

"Well then it seems to me like the person she really needs to speak to is Stiles."

"Do you think Stiles would be open to that?"

"Of course he will. He'll forgive her instantly and treat the whole thing like it never happened. He's a good guy with Peter looking out for him. Don't worry so much about him. Worry about Lydia."

"I am, believe me, we all are. I'd say give them another week to cool down though. If for nobody else's sake but Peter's. He's the most dangerous factor and he's been testy lately," reasoned Deaton and Derek had to agree.

"Have a talk with Scott about it, will you? I'm done being interpersonal. It's exhausting," he said.

"I will. Things will work themselves out Derek. Lydia's a strong woman."

"I know she is. That's why she deserves better," Derek said patting the man on the shoulder and walking off. Stiles description of Derek as 'ninja nice' was starting to make quite a bit more sense.

\-------

They drank in Stiles' room. Despite being overwhelmed the boy was fairly elated over his findings. Nebula's Middle had become his favorite drink. He'd polished through the non-alcoholic ones Peter had gotten him at the drift but had been saving the ones with alcohol for a special occasion. Peter listened to him intently. In the past he'd merely been pleased by the sound of a lover's voice. With Stiles he was more enamored with his words and the enthusiasm behind them.

"I mean this both terrifies and excites me. If this thing went operational it could answer questions. The Earth and the observable universe from it is roughly 100 billion light years. At stop speed, clearing 60,000 light years a day it would still probably take us around 4500 years to exit the observable universe. With this we can do it in weeks... days maybe. Instantly? I don't know yet."

"Did you just do all that math in your head?"

"Yeah, why?" Stiles asked handing Peter the bottle.

"You're a robot," the man laughed.

"If you say so," Stiles said leaning down to plant an elated kiss on his bicep.

"You're brilliant, I wish you'd have more pride in that."

"I have pride in the things that I do. But I really haven't done anything someone else with the right education couldn't do better," Stiles told him and Peter was floored that he believed that.

"Is that what you really think?"

"Well... Yeah."

"Then you are a bit of an idiot. Stiles we went to 8 different drifts before we found you. Men and women with education couldn't do what you could. You're a genius Stiles. If you realized that I think you could go far beyond your expectations."

"I'm an engineer Peter. It's much more worthwhile than being a genius. For me the doing is secondary to the thinking. You learn by doing." Stiles settled back on the bed beside him and Peter handed him the bottle. Stiles set it to the side instead and pressed his lips against Peters. "But I like that you think that way about me."

Stiles leaned back in and Peter stole control over the passion in the kiss. It was gravity at work when Peter pulled him closer and pressed hard against his lips seeking entrance to his mouth. Stiles could feel how badly Peter wanted him in that kiss. It was an amazing and terrifying feeling to know the person he wanted so badly, wanted him back. Peter had been ridiculously good to him. Stiles wanted to be able to give him something in return. He pulled away and his face went red before he could even get the words out.

"What is it?" Asked Peter laughing.

"I, uh, if you want to... I want to get you off."

Peter's grip on Stiles' arm grew tighter and he scented the sensitive skin of his implant, sending a bone deep shudder down his spine. Peter had gotten impossibly hard beneath him, Stiles could feel him against his thigh, his want for him. And still Peter showed restraint.

"Stiles... are you sure?"

"Yeah, I want to make you feel good." His earnest reply drove a growl from his chest that sent a shock of pleasure straight into Stiles' gut. 

"We'll go slow," promised Peter. "And if you don't like something you need to tell me Stiles."

"I will, promise," the boy said insistently drawing him in for a kiss. 

Peter rolled them over until Stiles was firmly pinned beneath him and stole his lips in another kiss. Peter went slowly but with the speed of a man who wanted release. His hands were slow but were not hesitant in creeping under his shirt and gliding over the planes of his ribs.

"Lift up your arms," he whispered and Stiles obediently allowed the man to pull off his shirt.

Peter rolled his hips and Stiles mewed. His body went limp, the submission programmed into his biology giving a dominant permission to do as he pleased.

"You sound so cute when you're about to cum in your jeans," Peter whispered filthily into his ear and began rolled his hip once more. Stiles felt his hand track to the button his his jeans and hesitate.

"You can touch me anywhere you want," Stiles assured him with a kiss. Peter undid his jeans with a single graceful hand and his fingers trailed the waistband of his boxers. He growled deciding the clothes were too restricting and stripped Stiles, leaving him vulnerable, exposed, and hard beneath him, his jeans still hanging off one of his ankles.

"Beautiful," growled Peter fisting Stiles' cock and watched his eyes roll back in his head from the pleasure. Peter touching him this way felt right. He wanted Peter touching him everywhere. He wanted to satisfy him.

"Nnnn Peter," he cried out and wrapped his arms tight around the man's neck.

"Does it feel good?" Peter asked slowly stroking him and wondered if the man minded how much he was leaking onto his hand.

"Y-Yeah," he moaned. "This was kind of supposed to be for you though," he said pressing a soft kiss on the hair above Peter's ear that drove him wild.

"I'm enjoying myself plenty," Peter assured speeding up his strokes and sending Stiles arching completely off the bed. "Seeing you like this for me is amazing," Peter told him jerking the boy harder. Stiles kissed him dirty, deep, and open mouthed while Peter worked his cock. He loved the little pitiful noises Stiles made into his mouth. He stopped.

"Did I do something wrong?" Stiles asked.

"No. Would you be mad if I marked you?" Peter asked. He assumed Stiles would know the meaning, having grown up around Alpha's and their habits.

"Anywhere you want," Stiles told him. The shy glance he stole at Peter's cock was adorable. "You're really big," Stiles said so honestly it sent a bolt of pleasure straight down Peter's dick.

"You're so cute," Peter laughed pushing them down on the bed and aligning their cocks. Stiles didn't last very long with Peter rutting against him. Stiles was driven too wild with sensation. Peter was large, strong, and all man. His hips didn't stutter as he thrust over Stiles. His arms did not tremble or lack for strength. Part of him wanted to beg Peter to fuck him then and there; the part he didn't understand. It wanted to feel overpowered by Peter. But the thinking part of his mind was scared of how attached even just this would make him to the man but he was long past caring.

"Peter I think I'm about to-," Peter silenced him with a kiss and worked him through an orgasm that had Stiles screaming his name in the cabin. When Stiles was milked dry he let the boy go limp against the covers and worked on finishing himself.

"Watch me Stiles," he ordered and the boy obeyed. "I'm not as good a man as you think I am. Right now, the thing that makes me hardest is knowing that you're going to be walking around smelling like my cum for days," the man told him. "Like mine."

"I am yours," Stiles told him as Peter shot. He came hard on Stiles in four thick bursts that striped and pooled on him from chest to navel. Stiles loved it.

When it was over Stiles lay in a daze on top of Peter's chest.

"That was awesome," Stiles said. Peter laughed.

"I'm glad," Peter said sincerely.

"No, I mean it. I didn't get freaked out once," Stiles told him.

"Stiles... How much do you actually know about your tactile type?" Peter asked curiously.

"Nothing really. When Jennifer found out she got really scared; told me to keep it a secret."

"She was right to do that, truly. I think before we do anything more, that needs to be sorted out for you. I actually feel a bit guilty now." 

"No, please don't feel guilty. I wanted to do that. I'm a 20 year old virgin. Believe me Peter... there was nothing about that experience I regret," Stiles told him pushing the man playfully.

"Good, I care about you Stiles. You know that right? That you mean more to me right than I'm even willing to admit to myself?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't have let you touch me with a 10-foot pole otherwise," Stiles pecked his cheek. 

Somewhere the universe subtly shifted.

\-------

As Peter and Stiles languished in their afterglow, Allison chose to meditate. Scott had joined her this time around and she found it difficult to concentrate. The Alpha was putting forth an honest effort but it was difficult for Scott to hush his worries and Allison could sense it.

"You know his presence here almost guarantees Deucalion will be defeated," Allison told him. "I'm certain he was the one Eromias wrote about."

"And you don't think it's wrong not to tell him? Allison, Deucalion blew up his planet. He stole everything from him. If he finds out now-."

"If he finds out now it will break him. He's too fragile right now. Peter is making him strong; strong enough for something like that to make him angry when it finally comes from the lips of Deucalion himself. But right now the voyage is important. He's the only one who can get us to the end; to Eromias."

"But how can you be so sure Eromias is still alive? He'd be over 1,000 years old."

"My people had absolute faith in him before the exodus. We are not of a people who blindly accept. Deucalion is secondary to what this ship will eventually accomplish. Stiles is the spark ignited. He is the only thing in this universe that will never be again. It is vital he comes into this knowledge on his own, proper time. Right now he is weak, afraid, and hurt. It is our job to stand watch over him until he is stronger and nothing more. He must be protected at all costs."

"I believe you," Scott said. "Too much has happened for anything to be left to chance anymore."

"Peter suspects much the same. Everything is happening naturally. Enjoy this time exploring the stars Scott. Work on bringing us all together as a crew. You are just as vital to this mission as Stiles. You are the Captain and everything hinges on you being the electron; that which draws us all together." Scott looked at Allison and wished he had painted the stars in space for her. She was beautiful, enigmatic, and wise. Scott wanted more than anything to know her; to be confidant, friend, and lover.

"If you told me who you were I wouldn't tell anyone," Scott told her.

"I know you wouldn't. I have told you as much as I can. Things need to happen naturally for you as well. It's not because I don't want to; it's the opposite in fact. I just want to spill my guts for you because this is a big and scary universe and having somebody to talk to would be nice."

"You can always talk to me," was the Captain's sappy reply. He was rewarded with a sweet but chaste kiss to his cheek.

"I know Scott. And one day soon, I promise we will talk about amazing things. It just can't be today."


	6. Chapter 6

_"What a strange new world you find yourself in. Unfortunate you had to trade one kingdom for another," the little brunette girl said. She hopped down from the sill of the window she had perched upon. Stiles could see nothing outside of it but lightning and thick yellow smoke._

__

"Where am I?"

__

"A dream... mostly. It's easier if you think of it that way. Geographically we're in a gas giant; that was my pick. All this gas and dust too stubborn to become a star. Pig headed is not a poor quality."

_"Why am I here? Who are you?" Stiles asked. They were on board The Equitas. He wanted to call out to somebody, but found himself unable to do so._

_"Why you're here is a bit too existential for my tastes. As for me, I'm just nobody."_

_"Nobody blinded the Cyclops," Stiles said. The little girl smiled._

_"Well wouldn't I be something then?" She said playfully._

_The scene outside the window changed. They hovered over Earth._

_"You miss home," she said._

_"Every day."_

_"You should listen more to your lover. Hope is most powerful in the darkest hours."_

_Stiles watched Earth crack up from the window for a second time._

_"Stop it," he begged. They were close, too close. Thrashing bodies were in high definition zoom._

_"I'm not controlling it. This is your stupid, stupid guilt which you deserve if you truly think your skinny, weak little person could have done anything to stop it. Don't look away from this Stiles. You always figure it out Stiles. There's a different way to feel. You lack the perspective now but in time..."_

_"In time what?"_

_"That's the million dollar question. Why don't you seek some perspective," she said with a snap of her fingers._

_Stiles was back on Earth. People were running. The ground shook and the dream was so lucid he could feel the plates beneath him sliding; cracking._

_"Likelihood of planetary destruction absolute," came Boyd's voice. Blue skies became void._

Stiles woke up screaming and it scared the Hell out of everybody on the bridge. He'd fallen asleep at the helm after overusing his implant. B.O.I.D. had explained he'd adjusted the time flow he experienced within the interface and it was tiring but otherwise harmless. Scott had let the guy sleep. 

"Stiles!" Scott yelled taking hold of him so he couldn't hurt himself thrashing. "Wake up!" He roared in an Alpha timbre and already he could hear Peter's footsteps. Stiles screams could have been heard for miles by an Alpha. His thrashing stopped. Stiles blinked into awareness and Scott released his grip; he and Peter had began messing about. He didn't want a jealous high Alpha on his hands. Not in regards to a clearly marked lover.

"Scott?" He squeaked in embarrassment. Deaton, Harris, and even Lydia were standing above him.

"Dude, you were having a horrible nightmare."

"You have no idea," Stiles told him, moving to stand with Scott's insistence. He gave Peter a wave and weary smile when he rushed onto the bridge. "I'm okay... The implant gives me really lucid dreams sometimes. They'll mess with your nervous system sometimes; make them feel real."

"Well that's kind of horrifying," Harris said.

"Yeah, I think I'll head to the engine room for awhile. Shake it off," Stiles said giving himself a very dog-like full body shake to illustrate his point.

"Yeah dude, you still on for Tactician later?" Scott asked. He'd become convinced practicing with Stiles was the key to defeating Peter.

"You know it," Stiles told him.

Peter of course joined him walking back to the engine room.

"Are you really okay?" He asked and Stiles nudged him.

"Not quite up to full speed but this should help," he said with a grin and leaned in to steal a quick kiss. He laughed when Peter growled and pulled him back in, but obliged the man a deeper kiss that escalated to them necking like teenagers outside his door. In Stiles' defense there was a possibility he could still be one. They didn't break apart until broken by an amused looking Derek and a clearing of his throat.

"Really you two? Stiles I get, but Peter, you're both literally an inch from the door."

"Stiles was closer," sassed the Alpha.

"Look it's bad enough with all the ooey gooey feel good pheromones you two are spreading through the rest of the ship. Do not add the sex ones to the mix," Stiles face went beet red. "It's like breathing valium. My moods are not my own anymore."

"He misses being able to brood properly," Peter told him but still ushered Stiles to the door. Derek stalked off muttering about randy type 10's. Stiles was all over Peter as soon as the door shut behind them. "Your room?"

"Yeah," Stiles whispered. "Can I use my mouth on you?" He asked.

It was moments like that when Peter felt completely sapped of energy by the strange little human. Peter laughed, feeling a ridiculous wellspring of affection bubbling up in his chest. He hugged Stiles, scenting his hair as he did so.

"Let's show you why no sane man would ever turn down a blowjob," Peter laughed and led Stiles by the hand to their room.

\--------------

"They are all over each other. This isn't a research vessel. It's a freakin' pleasure cruise," Jackson whined. "I just need a spanner."

"Hey, I'd want laid after a nightmare like that too," Scott said.

"Or if we'd all be honest adults about it; I'm pretty sure none of us would mind getting laid regardless of circumstance," said Harris. Jackson laughed at that one. If there was one quality he bothered to appreciate in anyone, it was brutal honesty.

"Here here," Deaton said raising his coffee. They burst into giggles at that. Everybody at least, but Lydia. She'd become more withdrawn than ever over the last few days. She left the bridge quietly while they joked and Derek followed her.

"What do you want Derek?" She asked with a tired sigh.

"Frankly, for you to get better. What the hell is happening to you Lydia?" The woman scowled.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm going crazy. I don't have an instruction manual on how this works. Nobody every taught me. I have no idea why I hate him; I just know that I do. That doesn't feel like me, but then again I've had to reevaluate just exactly who and what I am."

"And who you are is a woman who picks on a defenseless human? A bully? You've always been direct, blunt, and painfully honest, but I never thought you were a bully. Lydia, Peter and Stiles started sleeping together recently. My uncle will kill you over him. Do you understand that Lydia?"

"I know," Lydia said and Derek felt like the world's biggest dick when she started to shake.

"Then why are you still doing it? Let someone help you, Lydia. What's wrong? What's happening to you?" Lydia dropped like her legs had been taken out beneath her.

"They're not finished screaming. It hasn't stopped since I left Earth. Every time I look at Stiles it's a thousand times worse. You might not have to worry about Peter killing me if it doesn't stop. I just keep thinking that maybe if he wasn't here..."

"That they'd stop," finished Derek.

"Yeah."

"Look, you're the only other crew member here who gets that silence is golden. We're going to work this out and you're going to get to see the fucking universe Lydia. I know how badly you wanted that. We're going to help you through this."

"Everybody hates me now," she said breaking into pitiful tears.

"Nobody hates you Lydia. I just don't think they know you're hurting. You never tell anybody these things," Derek scolded and pulled her into an awkward hug.

"You noticed without having to be told," Lydia pointed out.

"Some people need to be told," Derek told her. "Let's get Harris to check you out in med-bay. Maybe he can figure out something Deaton can't. Freaking out doesn't suit you."

"You have no idea," Lydia said but allowed Derek to lead her down the hall.

\------------------

"I- I can't last long this way," Stiles said gripping Peter's arms tightly as the man sucked hard on his dick. One hand had his hips pinned down gently but with no room brooked for movement. The other worked his base, twisting in sync with his mouth. Peter pulled off his dick and grinned. Stiles looked every inch the debauched little prince, panting, red cheeked, backed against the wall of the bed. Peter pushed upwards for a quick kiss.

"Of course you won't. It's your first blow job," the man laughed and dipped his head back down.

"Oh god," Stiles whined. It felt like Peter was trying to suck his brains out through his dick. "Peter... I mean it. I'm going to-," Stiles broke into a pitiful little whimper when Peter took him deep in his throat and he came a few hard seconds before he realized what was happening. It broke him in the best possible way for Peter as he worked every last drop from his dick. When Peter glanced up Stiles just looked done.

"Are you okay?" He asked pushing himself against the wall beside Stiles and nuzzling his hair.

"There is no amount of reading that can prepare someone for that."

"You read up on blow jobs?" Stiles might have been a bit miffed at the amusement in Peter's tone had it not been laced with equal affection.

"I'm used to being on a quick learning curve. What was I supposed to do. Going in blind is one thing. Going down blind is another," Stiles said.

"You are so ridiculous," Peter told him. "To be honest all you have to do is show up."

"Lucky for you I refuse to be that boring," Stiles told him. He kissed him right above his ear in that way Stiles' had to know drove Peter wild. He planted his hands on the man's shoulders and drug them down Peter's body on the way to his fly. It was both ridiculously adorable and arousing to watch the way Stiles concentrated so hard on just unbuttoning his jeans.

'You're nervous," Peter said. His hands were shaking when Peter grabbed them.

"I don't want to mess up."

"You don't have to Stiles." The boy glared at him.

"Just... If I mess up or something, tell me," Stiles said taking his hands back and returning to work on his fly. Stiles freed him from his jeans with more confidence this time. Peter had forgotten something that he was quickly reminded of. High passive tactile types didn't tend to have a gag reflex. Stiles was able to take him in deep and looked surprised at himself. He pulled himself off Peter's dick; looking delighted.

"So that's why I have such a hard time throwing up." Peter laughed uproariously.

"You're such a twit," he said warmly.

"Yep, well you gave me my first blow job so you're kind of stuck with this twit," Stiles said placing a kiss on the head of Peter's cock that sent a thick trail of cum leaking down his cock. Stiles' eyes went dark. Stiles was zealous in his want to please Peter in this. Stiles took Peter in deep, mimicking the movements Peter had done to him with impressive accuracy. Peter's hands tangled in his hair and he had to resist the urge to control the pace. Stiles' broke off and licked a long stripe down his shaft that had the Alpha growling as he pulled away with a string of spit and cum still attached to his bottom lip.

"I don't know how fast you want me to go," he said pulling one of Peter's hands from his hair and kissing the knuckle. "It's alright if you show me. I trust you," he said and meant every word. Stiles' placed Peter's hands back into his hair, pressing a tender kiss just beneath his navel before returning to Peter's cock.

"You're so fucking perfect," Peter told him as he gently pushed the back of his hair to set a quicker pace. Stiles' spared a glance at Peter's face, twisted up in pleasure, the feel of him hot in his mouth, the muscles of his cock contracting and leaking onto his tongue. He felt himself getting hard again.

"You can cum in my mouth too," he stopped long enough to say.

"Count on it," Peter said with an Alpha's timbre and it pimpled Stiles' flesh. It took much longer to get Peter off but when the man came it was with the same thick, violent bursts of semen his throat worked frantically to take.

"Amazing," Peter grunted as he released Stiles' hair from a near white knuckled grip and began to smooth it down instead. Stiles pulled off of him feeling a bit too bashful and exposed. Before he could wrap his arms around himself; Peter replaced them with his own and pulled Stiles to sit beside him.

"Was that okay?" Stiles asked. Peter looked at him, his expression one of intent.

"That was fucking wonderful." The smile he got in response was blinding.

"Awesome," Stiles sighed. He rested his head against Peter's shoulder. "I liked doing that for you."

"I know, I can feel how hard it made you," the man whispered and gripped his dick. Stiles let Peter take him down to the mattress.

\---------

"It's different deaths at different times. I, uh, never hear them all at once... It's more like-," Harris cut her off.

"Like they're taking turns?"

"Yeah," Harris hmmed. His eyes flickering over read outs from the bio-scans.

"You shouldn't have gone to Deaton for something like this. This isn't a loop, it's a simple biological process you've never been taught to turn off. Your brain can only process so many deaths at a time so they queued up... So to speak. This can be fixed quite easily. You have two options," Harris told her.

"Well... What are they?"

"The first one, you should note, I do not recommend. What we do know of Banshees is your minds somehow absorb the energy released by death. An energy we can't isolate. That energy kind of rests there until it is dispersed through visions. Now we can cordon off the area of your brain responsible for that but it's not going to do anything for you in the future. You'll still lack the control you clearly need."

"What's the second option then?" Asked Lydia.

"You could talk to Mr. Stilinski. If your body isn't dissipating that kind of overload naturally then one might assume there are some unresolved emotions to deal with. I have to imagine it isn't anger you feel at Stiles. It is guilt. It has to be, because you and I both know that boy is guilty of nothing. But maybe Lydia... Just maybe you feel a little guilty about keeping yourself so shut off that you didn't sense what was going to happen to Earth."

"I didn't know," she swore. "I had no idea... And then Peter said he thought that I did," she admitted and Derek wanted to deck his uncle.

"Peter is a dominant Alpha that's been thrown into a rut by a 20 year old, undersexed human. You could consider his opinion unbiased if you wanted to; but it wouldn't be the act of a thinking, sentient being," Harris assured her. Deaton said the man had been a teacher once. As rigid and unforgiving as his demeanor was; his capacity to compassionately make someone ignorant of something see reason was incredible. "The choice is yours Lydia. I think you know the right one to make."

She didn't have the proper time to reply. B.O.I.D.'s voice came across the speakers.

_"Distress beacon located. Advise response."_


	7. Chapter 7

_"This is the trade vessel Colossus Sprite. We have taken massive damage to our aft, port, starboard, and asses. We are all around fucked. If there is anybody out there stupid enough to help a group of complete and suspect strangers now wo-."_

_"Erica, damn it... Give me that freakin' microphone."_

_"Fuck you Kira, I'm giving this a folksy feel."_

_"Will you two just send the damn distress signal before we fall out of the sky!"_

_"Finstock... We're in space. You don't fall. What the fuck?" There was a brief scuffle._

_"This is the trade vessel Colossus Sprite. We took heavy damage, life support is failing, in need of immediate assistance. WILL NOT KILL YOU. See that's how you do it." The males voice said._

"That is the best distress signal I've ever heard in my entire life," Stiles said suffering from a case of uncontrollable laughter. Scott was in much the same shape. If theirs was an act it was a superb one but Peter sensed no real threat coming from the trade vessel. None of them did.

"We have got to pick these guys up," Scott agreed. "B.O.I.D. can you plot a course and reel them in?"

_"Easily."_

"Ohhhhh, I've got a surprise. Hold off on those cable people. The Equitas now has electromagnetic traction. We have a tractor beam guys. I will offer part time ownership of my soul to try it out first."

"I'm weary of the fine print on that one," Harris drawled and it even made Peter laugh.

"Don't listen to him buddy. You fixed it, you should break it in, and also be held responsible if something goes horribly wrong," Derek said in his partial defense.

"Awww Derek, that was so sweet and back handed," Stiles said making a face. "I may only be able to identify a limited assortment of fruits and vegetables. But I learned mah numbers good," the kid said dialing in the coordinates for the beam to lock onto as they approached the ship.

"Um, shouldn't we tell them we're here to help? You know... Before just yanking their ship into the hangar?"

"Oh yeah!" Scott said and Peter feared for the future of this crew. Deaton and Harris both looked just as done as Peter.

"Trade ship Colossus Sprite, cool name by the way. This is the research vessel Equitas. Is that the right name for this?" Scott asked without letting off the mic. So much for professionalism.

"You're the Captain, call it whatever you want. Just hurry I want to use the tractor beam."

"It's not called a tractor beam," Harris said.

"It is when you're from Earth."

"ANYWAYS," Scott continued. "We're going to pull you guys in. We won't kill you either. Um, over I guess."

"Are we recording all of this? Please, someone tell me this is being saved for posterity."

_"I keep a constant record of all activity on the bridge and other locations on the ship. This of course excludes private quarters. This is where I would advise engaging in foreplay if you wish that not to be accessed for posterity as well."_

There was a moment of silence.

"Boyd?" Stiles asked with a shaky voice. "Did you just make a joke?"

_"I believe that is what it was. Yes."_

"Oh. My. God. Peter, we just got owned by a space ship," Stiles said bursting into laughter. "Boyd just told us." Peter didn't look nearly so amused. "I'm so freakin' proud of you Boyd."

 _"Thank you. This crew has done an excellent job in helping me process the concept of humor."_ Stiles was in tears by that point.

"Today is going to be a really good day," Stiles said. Peter became slightly less annoyed. 

Everybody, including Lydia, appeared at the hangar to greet their guests. They had emerged from their ship almost immediately; far too enchanted by the enormity and allure of a ship like the Equitas to stay put in theirs. There were three of them. Two good looking women and what one would peg as the luckiest average looking man in the universe had exited the ship.

"Holy crap," the blonde one said. She met Scott without hesitation. "Is this what I think I know it can't be?" Erica asked in wonder.

"A Beacon Fleet ship, in the flesh," Scott said.

"Woah," Erica said. It summed up how all of them felt about the ship. "How did you get a piece of ass like this?"

Derek glanced to the side and saw Lydia trying to hold back a smile.

"That's kind of a long story. My name is Scott by the way. This is Stiles, Derek, Peter, Lydia, Jackson, Deaton, and Harris," they all waved as cued. "This ship is B.O.I.D."

_"Welcome aboard."_

Erica gaped but was quick to pick her jaw up off the floor.

"I'm Erica. That's Finstock and Kira. Thanks for the pick up. We were hauling like a ton of reefer before these assholes tried to raid our ship. They had a bigger vessel and we took a lot of damage, but as soon as they boarded we had the upper hand." That was obvious. Erica was an Alpha, a female of the race was twice as dangerous as a male. Kira was a Kitsune, though that only the Alphas could tell. Much to Peter's surprise, Finstock was human. 

"You're human," he said to the man more for Stiles' benefit. "Did you make it off Earth?"

"Spacin' for years," Finstock said shaking his head. "From what I heard nobody made it out. Deucalion saw to the job with his personal detail. His personal detail doesn't snitch."

"I figured as much," Stiles admitted. "I had my eye on every system I could break on outdated tech and didn't hear a peep." Finstock grinned.

"You a native?" 

"Los Angeles by way of Beacon Hills," said Stiles.

"No shit. I was in both of those camps for awhile. If you got out of Beacon Hills and Earth alive you must be one slippery son of a bitch."

As it turned out Finstock was also an engineer. Erica was a pilot by necessity but had been trained as a sensor specialist; something desperately needed to cut down on Stiles being forced to run from the bridge to engineering every 15 minutes. The sensors were beyond tricky and even Peter had trouble with them. They needed work done that Stiles just hadn't had the time to complete. Kira was a historian and linguistics specialist. 

\-----------------

"We should invite them to stay," Stiles told Scott. "I'm not complaining but I could really, really, really use the help in engineering and Erica could take a lot of work off my hands too. I mean all three of them would be useful. On a ship this size we need all the help we can get."

"You trust them? Just like that?"

"Yup," Stiles said. "Their ship has an awesome name, they're about as professional as we are, and I doubt they have any nefarious plans to steal this ship. They're just three more people trying to hack it in this crappy world."

"I'm with Stiles on this one," said Jackson. "They seem alright to me. I think Finstock is really weird, but still alright."

"Does anybody disagree?" Nobody piped up.

"Okay then... We'll all hang out on the obs deck tonight, invite them along and if they say no drop them off at the nearest station?"

"The least we could do is give them a probationary period while we're still in the galaxy," Deaton agreed. "We can't look away from good and qualified people falling into our laps. Not with the shape we're in." Stiles snickered and everybody stared.

"Sorry, inner monologue. Continue."

"That was pretty much it. I guess carry on until normal until about 2100 tonight."

"Sweet," Stiles cheered.

All of the tension of the last week had been lifting off his shoulders at the arrival of another person aboard the ship. As close as he was getting with Peter, and the friendship he was building with Scott, nothing compared to having someone who just knew Earth to talk to. When they exited the conference room he looped his arm through Peter's. It was a habit he'd taken to since the drift. Peter didn't mind at all.

"In a good mood are we?" Stiles sighed in mock exasperation.

"Good enough. Another Earth born on the ship, from the wild west no least. The prospect of this ship being completed that much more quickly. Getting to use a freakin' tractor beam. The potential whole of the universe in front of us; if there is such a thing as an end to it," Stiles admitted. "I'm not letting anything rain on my parade today. Just call me Macy because it's my day," he said making one of those obscure Earth references most people didn't get. Stiles watched Peter fight down a smile. He was good at it, save a faint twitch of his lips that Stiles knew intimately from staring too much.

Peter wasn't so good with real, honest emotion. He preferred showing Stiles he cared through action and Stiles' very big heart understood that. He translated Peter's gestures into the proper words the way he might a line of 0's and 1's. So when he said, "I'll make you any disgustingly unhealthy thing you want for lunch today." Stiles got that big dopey smile he always got when Peter did something sweet for him. That sappy little grim that charmed and fired him up because nobody had ever smiled for him the way that Stiles did.

The young man would prove to be his undoing if it hadn't already happened. Stiles stopped him with a hand to his chest and pressed his lips to Peter's ears. 

"If you really want to make my day," he said pressing a kiss to the shell of Peter's ears. "You'll go right instead of left and let me suck your dick in the weapon's locker." Peter's arm wrapped around his waist mechanically. He grazed his teeth against Stiles' neck and growled; it drove the kid crazy and Peter loved it. 

"What about posterity?" Peter joked.

"Posterity is going to find out that I have an oral fixation."

Sometimes they couldn't help themselves. They got lost in a heady kiss that had Stiles backed against the wall with Peter's hands firm on his hips, pressed as close together as they could get themselves without losing lip contact.

"I'm starting to really like this ship," came Erica's voice. They broke apart with little guilt. "No, oh my god, by all means continue. This is some pretty legit type 10 action going down."

"Sorry, you're just going to have to wait for the movie like everybody else," joked Stiles. Erica sighed.

"It was definitely worth a shot. You boys have fun," she said sauntering off. Peter was quick to get Stiles to the weapon's locker after that.

\------------

"The crew of this thing seems pretty above board. Scott's transparently nice, Druecs don't tend to run with a bad crowd, Allison is like a jolly human sized elf, the human has that high Alpha wrapped around his little finger, and the rest seem pretty normal," Erica reported.

"That's surprising," said Kira. "But it's mostly a relief. Could you imagine a ship like this in the wrong hands?"

_"Pardon me for intruding but I would not allow this ship into the wrong hands. I am a Beacon Fleet research vessel and warship designed for indefinite interstall travel. I will not be piloted by thieves, murderers, and slavers."_

"You have that kind of control over the ship?" Kira asked.

_"I am the ship."_

"Well that is equal parts terrifying and cool," Kira laughed nervously.

 _"I assure you, I wish no harm to those who wish no harm to my crew."_ The AI warned ominously. Boyd was very protective of his crew. They gave him life and purpose he had lacked for many long years. No harm would come to them; even at his own expense. He felt that on a level far beyond his programming.

"Oh believe me, you are big, beautiful, and bad ass; those are the three most important B's in the universe. I've never said this about a ship before but I want to make sweet sweet intergalactic love to you big boy," Erica purred and Kira was deeply disturbed by the commitment with which Erica stroked the hull.

_"That is very kind of you."_

\---------

Peter's hands were tangled in Stiles' hair. It was getting longer and kept carefully shaped into cute little gelled up spikes that Allison no doubt showed him. The woman treated Stiles a bit like a doll; Peter hadn't minded the results. 

"I'm starting to think you enjoy this," Peter told him as Stiles licked a long line from that bottom of his sac to his head.

"I do," Stiles said. "I like your face, the noises you make, your taste; it makes me want you more," Stiles told him. Being from Earth Stiles didn't have any natural inborn shame of sex. Humans were tactile type 7's on average, it was part of the reason they were so popular as slaves. Stiles was never shy in telling Peter the things he liked about sex. Foreplay and fucking around in storage closets didn't terrify him so much; those were instincts easy for him to give into. Peter understood Stiles' hesitation in actual sex. For a passive type 10 it was an enormous leap of trust; the feelings behind the instincts were like human lust times ten.

"Good, because I'm really starting to like how much your cute little mouth wants to be wrapped around my cock," Stiles loved it when Peter said dirty things like that. That's when Stiles knew he was doing well; when he brought out the animal in the man that was just as much Peter as anything else. Stiles wasn't so naive about sex that he had not fantasized. He had often wanted for the rougher type of man; that was likely due to his tactile type. But he wanted for a man that loved him as well and he suspected Peter could come to that and wanted to encourage it.

"That's good, because I'm really starting to like how much you want to cum in my mouth," the boy said and took him almost all the way down to his base.

"How about I cum all over that cute little face instead?" Peter said seeing how far Stiles was willing to be pushed. He pulled off and tailed a row of maddening, little nips down the base of his cock and Peter praised the books he'd been reading.

"Anything you want," he said. Peter didn't let himself last long after that. When he was ready he pulled Stiles back gently.

"Do you want it?" He asked.

"All over me," Stiles told him and with a few quick strokes Peter was moaning softly and cumming hard on his cheek, lips, and chin. Marked. His, Peter's instincts told him. He hoped Stiles understood that need. Peter cleaned his face gently with one of the many stray cloths meant for buffing the weapons.

"You're beautiful," Peter told him. He said that to him often. It was the man's silly, repressed way of expressing deep affection. He reached for the button of Stiles' jeans but the boy smacked them away.

"That was for you. I don't want to cum until tonight; when you're inside me," Stiles told him. It was enough to fire him up then and there but Peter restrained himself.

"Are you sure?" Stiles wrapped his arms behind Peter's neck and kissed him.

"I told you I wouldn't make you wait long. I'm a 20 year old virgin, not a nun. I just needed to know that you wouldn't... y'know."

"Get what I wanted and leave?" The man assumed for him.

"Yeah, I like you Peter, a lot. It would kill me if you did that but it's pretty easy to figure out you won't."

"Well tonight then you should have no illusions left. You're going to find out just how badly I want you."


	8. Chapter 8

"Boyd?" Stiles called from where he lay sprawled out on top of one of the desks. Peter liked to complain Stiles totally defeated the purpose of furniture but it had never been a good idea to sit on a couch on Earth.

_"Stiles."_

"I can't concentrate at all."

_"Peter is equally distracted as well." Stiles smirked at that._

"That makes me feel a little better. I can't be the only one feeling like this all the time."

_"You aren't. Peter's pulse, respiration, and pheromone production all increase the moment you enter the same room as him. His bio-scans show all the hall marks of intense physical and emotional attraction. He's more agitated than normal today."_

"Oh my god, I am so glad I talked to you about this. Tell me more."

If Boyd had any concept of privacy he tended to ignore it when it came to Stiles. The young engineer wondered if this was because he was the closest thing Boyd had formed to a real friend on this ship or because he was under no real requirements to remain tight lipped. Either way, by the time Peter showed up to the engine room to remove him for lunch; Stiles was almost heartsick for him.

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" Peter asked, half annoyed, half amused.

"Because I like you."

"I can't believe you never had anybody on Earth. You could charm the skin right off of a snake," Peter told him. He adopted a lot of Earth expressions for Stiles' benefit.

"Yeah, well the human race wasn't perfect. No race is. There were people I liked but it became obvious fairly quickly they weren't worth the risk. Deucalion used to pay people to turn type 10's in. It wasn't difficult to hide but it did suck."

"You haven't been as depressed talking about Earth lately," Peter pointed out. "That's recent."

"I will never get used to you guys being able to smell what I'm thinking," Stiles sighed. "But yeah, I've just been doing a lot of thinking about it."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Do you even know what a penny is?" Stiles laughed.

"Not enough to pay for your thoughts; but I'd like to hear them anyways." Stiles threw a curly fry at him.

"Stop being so you. It makes it hard to concentrate. But you know that, uh, incident on the bridge the other day when my implant gave me that really lucid dream?"

"I remember you almost giving me a heart attack; yes."

"Well, I mean in the dream I saw Earth when Deucalion... Did what he did. And at first I felt so guilty. I mean Earth had about 40 people looking out for it and I was one of them. To be honest I wanted put myself out of an airlock for a long time. I was kind of at a low point."

"Who wouldn't be?" Peter replied. That's what Stiles liked about him. He never offered apologies; mostly just understanding and advice.

"Right? But even in my dream, my own brain called the guilt stupid. And then I remembered you telling me you weren't sad; you were angry. The more I thought about it, the angrier I did start to feel. Not just at Deucalion but at myself. Nobody from Earth, myself included, deserved what we got. I got so mad for letting Deucalion make me feel that way. For being stupid enough to think there was anything I could have done, even if I had known. I've been going to med-bay once a week and cycling through some therapy sessions Harris gave me for like... grief and stuff. It's helped a lot."

Peter hadn't known that.

"I didn't know you felt bad enough to need therapy cycles," Peter said.

"I know. It was a decision I made pretty purposefully. I want the time I spend with you to be good. I can go cry to someone I don't have to look in the eye the next day. You're an amazing sounding board but you're a better friend. My best friend, all sexually aggressive flirting aside," Stiles said with a laugh.

Peter stood, picked up his tray, and moved to sit beside Stiles instead of across from them like they did traditionally. Peter pushed his chair close to Stiles and gave him a look.

"Not a word you little smart mouth."

"Not a word," Stiles promised and kissed Peter's bicep.

"I've never had a best friend before," the man admitted softly.

"Sorry you got stuck with the Stilinski model," he laughed.

"I'm not."

\------------

"So we were thinking," Scott began later that night on the obs deck. "We'll help repair the worst of your ship if you want before we get to the next station. It wouldn't be a problem at all. But to be honest you guys are experienced spacers and we need help running this ship."

"What's your end game?" Erica asked even though Kira knew she was chomping at the bit to say yes.

"Exploration. We're leaving the quad and Deucalion behind and just seeing what's out there. We're not coming back," Scott told her honestly.

"Yes," Erica said covering Finstock and Kira's mouths. "Ignore the opinions of these two. They are but figments of your imagination." Finstock ripped Erica's hand from his mouth.

"If I was 9 years younger I'd show you a pigment." Kira and Erica didn't look phased by Finstock's strange statement. Much to Peter's amusement it bothered the hell out of Stiles.

"That doesn't even make sense," the engineer said.

"That's because apparently I'm a figment. That being said; what the hell. I'm in too," Finstock said.

"Awwww, I knew there was a reason we kept you around," Erica purred pulling him into a playful hug.

"No you keep me around because the AGG is a touchy piece of shit," Finstock said and they looked at Kira expectantly.

"My people believe the universe is sentient, that it has designs and fate in store for certain people. This ship is more proof of that than anything I've ever seen. I'm not going to walk away from that."

"Wow... That was incredibly easy," commented Stiles.

"I've heard that one before," Erica said and very intentionally locked eyes with Derek.

With the big part of the conversation over they lapsed into easy chatter. Stiles was content enough on his data-pad, occasionally showing Peter something interesting he pulled up about the weapon's systems before sending him the files for his own use to sort later. Erica noticed that Peter had no qualms with showing affection to the young man. The arm behind Stiles' shoulder, the way he sat with their legs touching, and how extremely marked Stiles smelled we all indicators that Peter was absolutely nothing but serious about the human. She'd figured as much but one always tended to worry when a human and Alpha were fucking around. But the kid looked just as crazy about the Alpha.

"So how long have you guys been fucking?" Erica asked with her customary level of tact.

"Still not long enough for a threesome to become an option," Stiles said.

"But long enough for the ship to start smelling like a pleasure drift," Derek added. Stiles sometimes forgot the man took more after Peter than he ever cared to admit.

"Says the one not getting laid," Peter replied smugly.

They dispersed not long after that. Stiles took Peter's hand in the quiet of the halls on the way back to his quarters.

"You're nervous again," Peter said. "Why?"

"You know why."

"Then tell me if this is really something you want to do. If you need more time we'll just fuck around like we've been doing. Believe me, I'm more than alright with either of those options," he told him wtih a mock leer. It was said so casually, each word specifically designed to make backing out a simple, easy matter. It made him laugh when he took the man's hands.

"It's something I really wanted to do the minute I got on this ship. Just because I'm a little freaked out doesn't mean I don't want to climb you like a freakin' tree," Stiles said with a frown. "Now come along Mr. Hale; there's work to do." Peter loved it when Stiles got bossy. He was a treat to have in bed. Laughter and terrible puns were as common in their bed as slick sounds and moans.

There was one memorable moment, a couple mornings ago. They'd been fucking around, Peter working him hard with his hand when Stiles got this look. Peter had become familiar with 'the look'. One never knew what would come after the look but it was generally something Stiles-ish.

"Hey Peter?" Stiles whispered in his ear.

"What?"

"I knew a farmer that got an award once. It was for being outstanding in his field."

The little shit had whispered a bad joke in his ear during a hand job. It had broken Peter like a twig underfoot. It made him laugh harder than anything had in memory recent or long. Even Stiles had been stricken by the absurdity of his own actions.

"I wonder if you'll be able to make bad jokes during this," teased Peter.

"You're just mad I got one on you. You're always so repressed. I know you Alphas pride yourself on being all manly and stoic. But you are just too purdy when you smile," the boy say in a joking tone and pinched one of Peter's cheeks. "Not that you aren't drop dead gorgeous already. Seriously, you guys need to bottle Hale genetics. All the big, muscly, handsomeness; it's cosmically unfair."

"We were very keen on breeding for intellect, looks, and physical prowess. I'm no less selective. It's really taking all I've got not to yank down your pants and take you right here in the hall. You should walk faster," he warned. The words went straight to his cock and Stiles was very much in danger of letting Peter do just that when an explosion rocked the ship. The string of curses Stiles let out were extremely appropriate. Before he could even ask what was going on, Boyd's voice came over the system. Alarms began to sound.

_"There has been an accident in one of the unused labs. A batch of research subjects have been released."_

"What, uh, what kind of research subjects buddy?" Stiles asked.

_"Approximately 400 Constrictors."_

"Shit."

"They'll find a way off the deck through the vents. We need to get to the others," Peter said.

"We need to split up first," Stiles said pulling away.

"The fuck we do."

"No, Peter, listen to me. I've got more experience dealing with these sons of bitches than anybody on this ship. I've got some laser saws and force riveters in engineering. You want stuff that can take off their heads clean. Don't argue with me and go while it's still relatively safe to be alone. And I swear to God if you try and follow me I won't blow you for at least a month."

That was a potent threat.

"Work fast," he said jabbing a finger into his chest. "I'll head for you as soon as I have everything if you don't meet me."

"Fair enough," Stiles said running off. Peter could smell the fear rolling off of him. Scott's voice came over the speakers.

"Everybody meet on the bridge. If we have to we'll just vent these things out." Peter liked that course of action. On his way to the weapon's locker he met Derek.

"Where's Stiles?"

"He wanted to stop by engineering," he said.

"And you let him!?"

"He doesn't argue much, but when he does you won't win," Peter said. "Now hurry up and help me load this fucking gear."

\--------------

Stiles flew through engineering, grabbing any tool that could slice or dice with a full charge. The monitors started flashing quietly.

_East vent. Constrictor. Two hundred feet._

Stiles shot Boyd a thumbs up and exited engineering with everything he'd managed to grab.

"Boyd, tell Peter I'm coming to him now," Stiles said with a laser riveter in hand. You worked fast and quiet when Constrictors were involved. "You're going to have to be my eyes inside the vents buddy. They love them some surprise attacks."

_"Two lefts, watch yourself."_ Instructed Boyd. Stiles took a shaky breath at the wall before the second turn, set his riveter to a horizontal scatter and rounded the corner. It was there, standing dim and unaware as they were want to do when lying in wait for food. Stiles took his head off with a practiced level of aim born from years of experience. The thin, transluscent blue skin of his neck exploded like paper.

"Gotta love a laser riveter."

_"Run Stiles. You've got three advancing on you from separate tunnels. Peter and Derek are heading for you. Stay ready to shoot."_

"Mother fuck Boyd. Why did this ship had 400 Constrictors on it?"

_"A research project. One that has not been reprogrammed into my knowledge. There was a service drone continuing a habitat for them in a specialized room. Without supervision it appears they found their way out and back onto my sensors; but not before blowing out one of the thrusters."_

"Constrictors don't do that. They're mindless, they would have started hunting immediately," Stiles said before finding himself flailing backwards and firing blindly into one that came too fast around the corridor. He jumped to his feet and whirled about wildly before continuing on running.

_"I suspect they've been genetically altered. They are expressing the cognitive instincts of toddlers. It is imperative we get everybody to the bridge while I'm still able to depressurize. Peter's around the next corner Stiles. Don't shoot him."_

Stiles lowered his weapon in relief meeting both nephew and uncle on his next turn.

"I have never been more glad to see two big ass Alphas in my life!" Stiles exclaimed but his relief was short lived. "We've got to go, I've got three on my tail."

"You've got more than that," Derek replied as they broke into a run.

"Watch the vents," he warned catching sight of blue behind the grate ahead. Stiles fired the riveter and the creature burst from it wounded and enraged. Stiles, thought Peter, was much more merciless than he'd ever considered him capable of being. He didn't break his stride on the second shot and didn't flinch at the blood spatter on his cheeks. "That makes three," he said in satisfaction. 

"Behind us," Peter warned.

"I've got the front covered, move and fire," Derek ordered when a group of 5 emerged from the vents. Stiles' never hesitated in his fire. Each shot was clean and killing if not a severely wounding one. 

_"Take Stiles and run. There's too many advancing to take on,"_ advised Boyd. And much to his eternally wounded pride Peter had no problem hauling him right over his shoulder and running like a bat out of hell. Fast enough to feel his chest bruising on Peter's shoulder if the man ran too hard.

"Ow, fuck Peter, laws of physics at work here. What the fuck are Alpha bones made out of; titanium and anger?" Stiles complained.

"Stop complaining and hold on," Peter said. Stiles peeked around his arms and saw a group of them clogging the corridor. Derek roared and went in first, lasers firing, claws extended, and all the animal coming out to rip these things to shreds. Stiles set his laser riveter to a more narrow scatter and shot the legs out of the Constrictors on the left advancing on Derek's unguarded side. All of this while upside down.

"You're an animal," Peter laughed.

"I'm sexually frustrated is what I am. They picked the wrong day."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Peter said as they approached the bridge and dropped Stiles to his feet. Boyd let them through and the doors closed behind them, just in time for the ship to go dark.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Breaking my own rules. Enjoy your second chapter of the day.

"Son of a bitch!" Derek cursed when the lights went dark.

"We should have back-up power right?" Peter asked.

"On the bridge... Absolutely," Stiles said as the lights flickered back to life. "But say someone theoretically disabled the back-up power for the rest of the ship so they could mess around with the shields. Bearing in mind this said someone had the absolute best intentions when doing this. Well that said someone would have cut off Boyd's ability to access that part of the ship as well." Much to his relief everybody had made it safely to the bridge despite his spectacular fuck up.

"Yeah, well B.O.I.D. let the Constrictors loose. So get in line on the blame game," Jackson grumbled.

"Has anybody ever actually had any experience dealing with these things?" Asked Allison.

"The three of us have," Peter said gesturing to himself, Derek, and Stiles. 

"Clearing teams," he explained. Most people had been fortunate enough not to have had to deal with the horrors of Constrictors. They were dim creatures that spread by hiding the sacs that birthed them on ships and procreated rapidly on planets with a rich food source. They were ridiculously easy to kill if one could get at their neck. But for those not fortunate enough, their long thin arms and legs would lock one in an unbreakable grip while they fed on your skin, scraping it away with razor sharp teeth. Many planets kept strict control on the population; driving them to extinction in many places. Earth hadn't been one of them.

"I'm from Earth. I can practically read their minds," Finstock said. Everybody else was at a loss.

"Wh-What do they do?" Asked Scott. "I mean, I guess I know in theory, but not really. Jackson and I both defected way before we ever had anything but basic training."

"I can take this one," Stiles offered. Scott gestured for him to continue. "Alright, so Constrictor 101. They're mean, nasty, slippery bastards who want nothing more than to eat the skin off your face first. Seriously, it's their favorite part. Their sight is for shit, they hunt by sound because they like to breed in dark places. They're breeding right now... As we speak and with the entire ship shut down they are going to get busy. Their first instincts are always to breed and hunt. It's their only instincts really."

"How do they hunt?" Erica asked.

"Well they move three different ways. They're predators at their base. They got no spines so unless you're in an air tight room they're going to find a way in. They like to slither because of that; they're fastest when they slither. But if they need to they can go to just two legs or four and they do it fast. They've got this weird adjustable bone or some shit in 'em. They like to snatch you from a hidey hole if they can. They'll whip out lightning fast and once they get hold of you that's all she wrote. You can't break a Constrictor hold. I've seen them take down Alpha's like it was nothing. They're nasty bastards."

"Why were they on the ship?" Harris asked.

"Because once upon a time there used to be qualified people aboard this thing that knew how to keep that mess in line. I've got a theory about that. Believe me," Stiles said. "It wasn't Boyd's fault. There's just so much to do on this ship. I didn't decommission the service drones on a ton of decks precisely because I didn't know what they were handling. There was a malfunction."

"We have to get them out," Scott said. "Preferably before more start hatching. They incubate in like an hour."

"Well there's only one way to do that," Finstock pointed out. "A group has to get back to engineering and reactivate the back-up power or we're going to fall out of the freakin' sky."

"God damnit Finstock!" Erica yelled. "We go through this every damn time."

"It's an expression!"

"Express this," she said flipping him off.

"I DID AND YOUR MOM LOVED IT!" That brought the bridge to silence. Erica and Finstock broke out in amused giggles. 

"You stupid prick," she said chuckling warmly. 

"The maintenance tunnels," Stiles said suddenly. "The one halfway to engineering has a control console specifically for the functions within the tunnels on a stand-alone power source. Holy shit... I almost forgot that. Now Boyd says he figures these Constrictors were genetically altered to be smarter, like toddler smart. It means they'll figure out how to open the doors sooner rather than later. But if we worked fast, we could make it to the maintenance tunnels, lock the doors to their accesses, and make our way to the engine room from there. The back-up power would take about 30 seconds to restart."

"B.O.I.D. could start venting the bridge as soon as we got back in the maintenance tunnels too. If we got respirators."

"If you disabled the gravity before venting it would confuse the hell out them. You'd vent more out at once, automated inner ship defenses could take out the pods and stragglers. We could stay locked down on the bridge until the scans ran clear. Hell, with power back on we could even get the service drones going after them. We'd have to work fast though. No time to hesitate," Peter said.

"Is there anybody besides you who can get the back-up power going? No offense but I mean if the Alphas can handle this one..." Scott trailed off. Once upon a time this would have made him angry; Stiles had always had difficulty coming to terms with just how easily the Alphas could get them under heel on Earth. He'd always been in denial about their strength disparity. That was until he noticed how hard Peter's arms would tense up when they were playing. He could feel how easily Peter could break his hips beneath his hands and how careful he was not to. He understood that to an Alpha they had to feel a little bit like holding a bird.

"None taken dude. It's uh, kind of Stilinski-fied though. As in it would take me about 60 seconds... Somebody else would need the schematic and time we might not have. I have to go first. I don't know how familiar Finstock is with this kind of tech but he'd be your best chance after me and we need to go all out fast if we honestly stand any kind of chance. I have really fubar'd this one today. Sorry guys." Stiles was a superb actor. Were Alphas not able to smell the fear rolling off of him like early morning fog over water. It was the normally quiet Kira who spoke next.

"I can go. I carry a sword and they need beheaded. Kind of makes sense. Also I'm not convinced that's the only way to kill them. I highly doubt they can survive going extra crispy," she told the others as she summoned crackling lightning to her hand.

"I go with Stiles," Peter said as if it weren't plainly obvious.

"I'll go as well," Derek said.

"I can offer my assistance as well," Harris said stepping forward. His eyes going that tell tale Ashuran green. "I'm the only other human weapon you have should conventional means fail."

"I'm with Kira," Erica said.

"No way, that's enough people. You need to hang back in case you, I, and Jackson need to go in with Finstock. That'll leave Lydia, Deaton, and Allison safe and sound on the bridge. They'll be able to launch a distress signal; keep themselves safe and protect this ship. Whatever happens we can't let anyone or anything capture the Equitas."

"Alright people, suit up I guess. The sooner we get these freaked out things off the ship, the better."

\----------

They suited up quickly, halving the more useful weapons and ammunition with the stand-by team.

"Stay close to me," Peter told Stiles. "I know you know what you're doing but don't be a dick about it."

"Same to you asshole."

Everybody stood at the ready when Derek threw open the maintenance tunnel doors. Boyd had given them the most recent map he could pull up of where the largest concentrations of Constrictors had been prior to the power shut down. Thankfully the path to the bridge was clear and they shuffled in quiet as church mice. Stiles was firmly planted in the middle. Derek and Peter took the lead while Kira and Harris were on the rear. Stiles quietly directed their path from the middle. 

Everybody paused when they heard the tell tale sounds of slithering coming from a side access. It was a stray that managed to find its way to the bridge by smell. The Constrictors were attracted to life. They hid on the sides of the walls by side access and waited for it to come slithering forward. Peter went after it with the same snake strike speed they were capable of. It barely managed to suck in the air necessary for what humans had dubbed their dinner wail before Peter had the knife buried in its throat and took it quietly to the ground. Stiles was man enough to admit being turned on a little.

They barely made it 30 feet before their first turn took them right into a breeding area.

"Laser saw," Stiles whispered lowly enough for only Alphas to hear. "It'll kill 'em before they can wake up and trigger early hatches," Stiles said pulling it from his bag. "Best thing I ever used on 'em. Stiles watched a brief conversation his ears weren't acute enough to pick up. Kira came around him from the rear and grabbed the second one Stiles pulled from the bag. Almost the second the first bag of flesh began to fizzle did a Constrictor come around the corner and alert untold others to their presence. Stiles fired his riveter over the head and into the screaming mouth. Derek and Kira began sawing through the wriggling, flesh colored sacks as fast as they could.

"How many are coming?" He asked Peter. "And from where."

"I know a turn we can double back from," he said.

"Too late," Derek called and started opening fire.

"We've gotta keep moving forward or we'll just draw more down on us. Shoot to push them back," Peter ordered.

"Everybody duck!" Harris yelled holding his hand outwards and distorting the air into a thick wall that sent them flailing into the wall. Peter watched Stiles jump back up and open fire with that handy little riveter of his, a wide scatter dismembering them at brutal points. Stiles was the perfect example of human versatility. Before racism and genocide became the standard for the quad, the humans had been considered a warrior race. It was a piece of legend that people tended to ignore given they were the weakest known creatures in the systems.

"Go!" Derek yelled.

Theirs was a frantic trek through the tunnels and not an easy push through. The Constrictors were far more inundated in the tunnels than Stiles ever thought possible and he had a horrible suspicion as to why. Throwing himself frantically across Peter's back he took out a Constrictor getting far too close for comfort. He spotted the console only a few yards ahead. 

"Peter, the console. I'm going for it. Try not to let anything eat me. Present company excluded," he yelled with a grin and the man nodded.

"Hold on to something!" Stiles yelled. He focused entirely on the console, ignoring the Constrictor that got a bit too close. As he knew he would Peter made quick work of it in good time. It got close enough to cover the bottom of his leg in thick, black blood. He dialed in the command to dial down the gravity generators on the hull. Weight ceased to exist just in time for a Constrictor to grab hold of the wall and launch himself at Stiles. His arms were pinned before he even had the notion, razor rows of teeth dug into the exposed flesh of his shoulder and the pain was truly exquisite.

There was nothing for a moment and then there was Harris, who had been closest to him, standing above him with the twisted off head of the Constrictor in his hands. The others were close behind.

"Oh my god," Kira gasped as she saw the deep nasty hunk of skin torn from his shoulders. "There's so much blood."

"Don't freak out," he snapped. "I got one good arm in zero G. Let's get to the engine room," he said. "Thanks," he said to Harris.

"Don't mention it," the Ashuran dismissed. He moved aside to let Peter help him up and the Alpha guided them both along the rails. Stiles could tell he was freaked out.

"It's okay Peter."

"It's not," the man said. "Try not to move around or talk so much. You've lost so much blood."

"Nah, most of it was still in my dick," he joked. Peter hushed him. Stiles fell silent. Nobody missed how he was too weak to shoot when the next round came through. Their only saving grace was they were far too spread out to come in large number and as predicted, completely bewildered by the lack of gravity.

"Talk to me," he told Peter. "I need to concentrate on something," he said as they reached the last leg of the stretch. Derek's leg was yanked out from beneath him. Peter managed to grab hold of his hand and yank the offender forward, separating its arm from the banister it gripped. Peter finished it off with a particle knife. Drops of Stiles' blood were floating in the air. "That was the burst of focus I needed," Stiles jokes as the access door came into sight.

When they opened the hatch; it was quiet.

"Control panel now," Stiles begged and Peter pushed them forward. "I need you to be my hands," he told Peter.

"Tell me what to do."

"Connect that wire to this port. That one to this one. This one to that one. Now see that wire? Rip it out, expose the wires, and connect it to those. Mind the live ones," he ordered as Peter worked efficiently off of his instructions. "Okay... Shit... Okay... You're pretty good at this," he praised. "Alright, it's being stubborn. Give it a little percussive maintenance," Stiles ordered.

"What?"

"Smack the shit out of it," Stiles ordered. Peter complied and a moment later the lights flickered on in the engine room. And the walls were covered in Constrictor pods bursting open one by one. Stiles keyed something into the control panel and pointed his gun at Peter.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Peter yelled.

"Saving your life," he said shooting the riveter into one of his knees and pushing him into Derek. "You got 10 seconds to get them in the room and I'm venting from here," he said keying open the maintenance hatches. "Take him Derek or I swear to God I'll fucking kill you." Peter snarled and took a swipe at Derek. Stiles enabled gravity and let them drop hard from the floor. "Better hurry," he warned with his gun still trained on them. A hand on his wrist stopped them.

It was Lydia. But it wasn't. This was the Banshee and it looked pissed. 

"Cover your ears," she hissed in a voice miles and away from Lydia's prim soprano. She covered Stiles' for him and then screamed.

Energy came pouring from Lydia, millions of souls that wailed through the veil they'd been in, trapped within Lydia. They tore through the Constrictors, through the remaining pods and ship. Energy that Stiles recognized intimately... Human. It was like standing in the wall of fire in a singularity. It was crushing, angry, magic, fire, good, bad, and true everything. 

"Help us," Stiles begged. "Please fucking help us!" He yelled over the roar. He felt Peter's arms wrap tight around him. Against the chaos of everything that was the human race he knew and loved he felt Peter. There was a white hot burst of light and then... nothing. The engine room was pristine. In the middle stood the little girl from his dream.

"It's not about if people like us can do it sweetheart. It's only about perspective. Get a clue," she said stalking towards him. Peter growled.

"For you then," she said to Peter and extended a silver pocket watch. "His clue." She dropped it into his hand and vanished.

"We need to get him to medical bay," Harris said snapping Peter from his trance. Stiles was out cold, soaked with blood, and his heart was slowing down fast. Lydia was out cold.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: This chapter was mostly an excuse for smut. It really was.

"I can't believe you shot me," Peter said in exasperation as he helped Stiles settle into his own bed. They'd gotten to him just in time and all he needed was a week of uninterrupted rest. The nanobots were having a harder time fighting the infection Constrictor bites caused in Stiles than they would another member of the crew. Lydia had came to as well, disoriented and sharing the rest of their disbelief at the events that had transpired. Stiles had yet to speak to her.

"You're not mad about that?"

"Why would I be? I know why you did it. I'm not necessarily a fan of the logic but I get it." Stiles urged Peter down beside him.

"You never get mad at me. It's creepy," he pointed out.

"I'll tell you what I think without hesitation. I sleep with you at night though, I know a little of what your nightmares are about. I don't ever want you lumping me in the same boat as the other Alphas. Especially when you still jump if we move a little too fast."

"I would never," Stiles said pushing himself upwards and planting a lusty kiss on Peter's lips. "You don't think enough of yourself sometimes either. You're good with words; you use that fact on me all the time. Muscle memory and opinion are two different things. Derek told me about all the movements you used to work with, smuggling people off Earth. Fuck Peter, if I didn't feel like a walking bruise, I'd thank you personally. On behalf of the human race and everything," Stiles said smiling wickedly.

"Well then you need to derail the conversation," Peter advised as he grazed his lips along his temple. "Because you're on bed rest for the next 5 days. You'll only suffer needlessly if you make yourself horny."

"I like suffering for you," Stiles replied. He talked about Peter manipulating him but Stiles had the ability to play him just as well in certain aspects. "Remember what a bad man you told me you were before cumming all over my face?" He said low and filthy inches away from his lips. Peter regretted teaching him that habit with the learning curve he had in sex as with all other things.

"I have a vague recollection," Peter said.

"Well I must be bad too. I liked thinking about you all day and not touching myself," he said. "Jerk off for me Peter. Make me want you more," he begged. Stiles did want that. He wasn't sure if it was the first time they'd fucked around or the moment they met, but Stiles fears and anxieties about his tactile type began to melt right away. Peter adjusted Stiles, placed his head firmly on his chest with his good arm supporting him. He wrapped one firm arm around his middle to keep his movements restricted.

"If you move or try to get yourself off, I'll stop. And when I'm done you're cleaning me up with that dirty little mouth," Peter told him as he deftly unbuckled himself with one hand and pulled out his cock.

"You know the other night I really was going to let you fuck me right there against the wall if you wanted to," he said mischievously and loved the way Peter's hand jerked spasmodically. The man's penchant for dirty talk had rubbed right off on him, so to speak. They were the only kind of words he could use against Peter on the same artful level of precision. But then the man would do something to prove he was still the master.

"Oh sweetheart," Peter said squeezing him a little and grinning against his hair. "You have no idea what I'm going to do to that cute little ass."

"Can I kiss you?" Stiles asked. Peter stopped immediately and drug Stiles into a long, open-mouthed kiss. Kissing always grounded Stiles during sex. It reassured him of insecurities Peter was coming to understand in spades about Stiles. It wasn't even sex that intimidated the kid, as he had said. It was intimacy. Stiles needed to know that he was with somebody who cared about him. Sometimes the fear bubbled back for no reason and he'd ask for a kiss. Peter found it unberably sweet how just that told Stiles what he needed to know. He placed himself back down on Peter's chest and waited for him to continue.

Continue he did and Stiles watched in rapt attention and lust boiling in his blood.

"Is this what you wanted?" He grunted out as those Alpha thick jets of cum coated his stomach and chest.

"You have no idea," Stiles told him as he moved to fufill his end of the bargain and began to lick every drop of cum from his stomach.

"Tell me you're mine," Peter demanded as Stiles cleaned him slowly.

"I'm yours," he said with Peter's cum on his lips. "You're my fucking Alpha."

\-------------------

"So are, uh, we going to talk about the elephant in the room?" Asked Scott two days later when they were all in a crew meeting. Stiles looked wrecked on the antibiotics Harris had given him to fight the infection. Lydia didn't look much better herself. Most everybody had moved to the floor to allow the two room to lie as comfortably as possible on the couches.

"Or we can just ask Stiles why some freaky ass ghost girl gave him a watch." Harris was torn between admiring Jackson's need for perfection and order versus being a little put off by his crude mouth. He wanted to wash his mouth out with soap or put something far more crude in it than words. Ashurans were fans of beautiful young men.

"Yeah, believe it or not that part is about to get even weirder," Stiles said. "That was the same girl from that nightmare I had on the bridge," Stiles told them and proceeded to lay out the details of it. "This watch," he ended nervously. "This watch was my dad's and it should have been blown to pieces right along with Earth."

"She said it was your clue. What does that mean? She mentioned perspective, that implies you're looking at something from the wrong angle," Derek helped.

"Well it's something to do with Earth," Scott said.

"What Earth?" Asked Stiles. "It's gone now."

"Then where did she get the watch?" Lydia asked. "Isn't it obvious? Perspective? Visions of Earth exploding? The watch? Ask yourself the who, what, when, where, and why of that watch and then realize which question is the most important one to answer," she lectured tiredly. Before Stiles, Lydia had been the resident genius aboard The Equitas and hadn't lost that status.

"When and where..." Stiles said with his eyes wide. "That's impossible. No... I'm not taking myself down that road of hopelessness."

"Then you're already on one," replied Lydia.

"What do you mean?" Scott asked. Poor boy was always a bit slow on the uptake.

"They mean that she could have gone back in time to get the watch. It's what the clues would suggest," Peter said as his own realization dawned.

"I doubt Boyd has a time machine just... lying around," Stiles said and his voice dripped with irritation. "We can just put a lid on this conversation. I'm sorry but I can't... I can't listen to people who weren't from Earth talk about missing it and doing right by it after the fact. It kills me. The universe made very clear they never gave a shit about us. If I start wondering why nobody cared before Earth blew up it'll make me an awful person, I think."

"I cared," Peter said when the room went silent and nobody would speak up against Stiles. "So if you won't listen to any of them; listen to me. I care every bit as much as you do and I have hope. So what if Boyd doesn't have a spare time machine laying around. The universe sure as hell might. You can sit here and feel sorry for yourself or you can start figuring things out. You like doing that."

"Fuck," Stiles said pressing his hands over his eyes and willing himself to calm.

"Don't you think you went a little too far?" Deaton asked coldly.

"Nah, he could probably use a good cry," Finstock said wiping his own eyes.

"He- You both could use a planet. We'll turn over every rock of every intelligent planet we find on our way from here to whatever. We'll find... We'll find something," Scott promised. Their normally exuberant engineer had nothing to say. Harris frowned.

\---------------

"Could I have a word with you?" Harris asked Peter later that day in the weapon's locker.

"About what?"

"Who do you think?"

"I'm listening," Peter said.

"He needs to read these. All of them," Harris said hanging the man a box of data-pads. "That boy is a genius, there's no doubt about it. But I was an educator of children for many years and I'm beginning to notice how startlingly ignorant he is of some things. He takes your word like gospel. You get right under his defenses and know how to take that clever little bastard out. I would think he is brilliant enough to crack non-linear travel himself but he has no faith. The universe has him convinced he is low, uneducated, and just good with machines. You need to work harder convincing him otherwise or that boy isn't going to hack it. Our support is behind him should he choose to fight. But you have to get him ready Peter."

"I've been trying," the man said seriously and took the box. "If I asked would you tell me how his therapy cycles have been going?"

"He told you?"

"He tells me everything eventually. He just does it in bits and pieces so he doesn't feel like he's being needy."

"I don't really sit in on his cycles. There's a diagnosis that goes directly to me but I don't view the sessions. I have to ask if you're serious about that kid."

"As a fucking funeral," Peter assured.

"Then just be as you have been to him. You could be a bit more stubborn about it too. You're the only one in any position to get that kid fought up about Earth. He is right you know; most of us didn't care. I'd like to correct that if I'm able," Harris told him and left shortly after.

When he went to join Stiles in his room later that night the kid was awake and watching something on a data-pad.

"Hey handsome-wolf. Whatcha got in the box?" He asked swinging his legs over the side of the bed and scooting himself to the edge.

"Things you need to read. Things that'll help you understand the kind of things you missed out on on Earth. Things that will save your life. I mean it Stiles; I want you to read them."

"Yeah," Stiles said amenably. "Okay," he added in concern born of Peter's tone. 

"I'm taking a shower," Peter told him. "Start on those books."

"Don't use the aftershave in the blue bottle," Stiles told him.

"Why?"

"Because I haven't gotten off in 3 days, I feel like crap, and it's bad enough having to keep my hands off of you fresh out of the shower without using the aftershave that makes you smell like a wet dream. Have some mercy here. Now that I'm actually doing things I want it like all the time."

"You know I'm only backing off because Constrictor bites are serious. I'm not teasing you or trying to make your desires secondary. I can sleep in my room if it bothers you."

"Sex isn't the only reason I want you around either dickhead. Go take a shower and come sleep with me. I'll behave."


	11. Chapter 11

"Peter," Stiles whispered playfully. Never cracking an eyelid the man responded with the irritation characteristic of him when he first woke up.

"You and I agree on many things Stiles. Mornings are not one of them."

"Harris is supposed to check out my arm. I made the appointment early morning out of petty sex deprived revenge," Stiles said climbing on top of him and going in for a rather sweet kiss given what a little twit he was being. "You can sleep in if you want. I'll either get out of the sling or I won't."

"You little shit... Help me find some god damned pants," he sighed. Stiles kissed him again.

"I like you so freakin' much," Stiles told him. "I'm sorry I woke you up early dude." Peter rolled them over playfully and tore a startled laugh from the engineer. Instead of dipping in for a kiss, or more, Peter just stared at him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I like you so much," Peter said throwing Stiles' own words back at him with a smirk. Stiles laid his head against Peter's chest and went quiet for a moment. Peter was always taken with how only his words could swing Stiles' moods so rapidly.

"Can you stay in with me today? Or are you too busy?" He asked.

"I've got all day."

"Awesome."

"The nanobots are doing their job. The wound is in great shape and the medicine is clearing out the infection beautifully. We can lose the sling," said Harris and Stiles was doing cartwheels inwardly.

"Can, uh, we y'know..." Stiles began. Harris hardly looked phased.

"Honeymooners," Harris sighed. "Just go easy, you should be fine. The skin on your wound shouldn't reopen if you exercise caution."

"I feel as if I am about to be Milhouse'd. Show me the other shoe and drop it now," Stiles said.

"There isn't one. Welcome to the world of speed healing Mr. Stilinski. There are never complications with it, we just look for them anyways. I'd suggest still giving the engine room a rest for a few more days. We should be arriving at the super massive you wanted to see by the time you're better."

Stiles took his hand outside the med-bay doors. Peter allowed himself to be pulled into a kiss. Stiles twitchy nature, his need to constantly be moving, often left Peter a victim of this as well. In bed he would position Peter as he pleased, tug him towards destinations thoughtlessly, and turn his head to look at things instead of simply asking him. Peter thought a lot of it were little tests, to see how much the Alpha would let his lover get away with. The rest was Stiles' need to touch that had been suppressed for years.

"I want you so bad," Stiles told him.

"Peter?" Scott called over the intercom. "Could you come to the bridge?" Stiles stopped him from responding with a look that was actually fairly intimidating. A sharp glare and one warning finger were extended into the air as he turned to the intercom.

"Hey, Scott buddy?" Peter waited, lips quirked in amusement.

"Oh hey Stiles, how you feeling?"

"Oh I'm good, I'm good. Um, uh is this thing you need Peter for life and death?" Asked Stiles.

"Not really. Why?"

"Because if I get cock blocked one more time I will eat the offender's soul." Stiles threatened. There was a pause.

"I'll get Lydia."

"Thanks buddy."

"I love it when you get assertive," Peter said wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

\---------------------

"You've been looking better lately," Deaton told Lydia as they enjoyed tea in the gardens. She'd been spending a lot of time there, attempting to calm nerves worn to the wire by her experience. She still jumped at loud noises and felt driven to the point of insanity by voices that tended to carry within the acoustic walls of the ship.

"I don't feel better. I can't... I can't believe some of the things I did."

"It wasn't you Lydia, not really. All those tortured souls were speaking through you. They wanted to hurt Stiles because they envied the life he still had. I think in the end though; they knew how much protecting the last living memento of Earth was."

"I don't think it was that," Lydia said. "They were so mad. They were feeding off all this rage mixed in with... With everything. But it was mostly rage. They couldn't have controlled it. Not as a single will."

"Then what was it?"

"I think... I can't be certain. I think Stiles directed them. There was some kind of power mixed in with my own that felt old. No other word for it but old. It smelled like dust and leather even, like old books. It wasn't bad at all. And for a moment, just one single moment, it all went through Stiles when he yelled." Deaton smiled.

"Did you know, that Peter believes that Alphas and many other species were born of humans and old magic? I do believes he considers Banshees within that rank too. A man like Peter is not easily convinced of much but he believes this with a startling conviction."

"That's nuts," Lydia said. "Everybody knows a few aliens went Terra Firma and bred some energy channeling skills into their genetics. Primitive humans thought that was magic."

"So ask yourself why he would believe something like that," reasoned Deaton. "What would make a man as reasonable as Peter convinced that what he believes is true. What would make an Alpha like Talia Hale believe the very same thing."

"Do you believe it?"

"I believe in all things until given a reason not to. It makes the universe a little less surprising."

"I really can't handle anymore surprises. I might just borrow that leaf from your book."

"I don't think you should upset yourself over thinking things," Deaton told her. "You should focus on your old routine."

"I'm so humiliated," Lydia admitted. "I acted so horribly and the only one who thought it was out of character was Derek."

"I think you're very wrong about that. How were they to know something was truly wrong? You'd never met Stiles before. You weren't truly out of character because nobody ever knew what it was in relation to him. I think you'd do well to seek forgiveness."

"He said there was nothing good about me," Lydia said with a watery smile. "He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you Lydia," Scott said sincerely from behind them. "He already forgives you. Harris explained everything to him. He flipped all those bad feelings right off. Stiles is cool like that. We should be asking you to forgive us, for not knowing how bad our friend was hurting," Scott said falling his knees and wrapped his arms around her legs to hug her knees. It was a very sincere Alpha method of supplication. "I'm sorry Lydia. I'm really freakin' sorry."

He stayed that way until she finished crying. Deaton handed her a handkerchief.

"Maybe you should get her back to her quarters," Deaton suggested when her eyes welled up at the gesture. He wrapped her in a tight hug until she calmed down. The more vulnerable members of their crew had taken the brunt of trauma from the Constrictors. "Come talk to me afterwards?"

"Sure thing," Scott said. He dropped Lydia back at her rooms and doubled back to Deaton.

"You do realize that your pack is weak right?" Deaton asked.

"I think we're really good together," Scott said plainly offended. 

"Then you think you've done well protecting the most vulnerable members of your pack? Now I know you have Peter and Allison whispering these high-handed ideas about equality and respecting individual strengths. I don't even want to know what Allison has been putting in your head about Stiles. But Lydia is a Banshee who can't use her powers yet and Stiles is a human. A real big, bad ass Alpha pack wouldn't have sent him into those tunnels. You're the Alpha, you're the predator, and it should have been you in those tunnels instead of Stiles. You should have noticed more was wrong with Lydia and yet you were too busy feeling sorry for the same human you nearly walked to their death. Shape up Scott. Be the Alpha. The protector."

"Peter or Derek would be better at this than me. I don't even know why B.O.I.D. picked me."

_"I picked you because you are a leader Scott. You are a good leader. I picked you to lead and I would trust you not to get my best friend killed."_

Scott and Deaton gaped. "Stiles is your best friend?" Deaton asked.

_"I have to share him with Peter, but yes. He says you may have more than one best friend. I am happy with just the one though."_

"I- I didn't know you wanted friends B.O.I.D." Scott felt like a terrible Captain. "How do I stop messing everything up Deaton?"

"Well, let's work on that my friend."

\---------------

"Just lay back," Peter told him trailing kisses down the side of his neck as he pushed him onto the mattress. The trail felt like fire against his skin, a brand of intention that Peter had never left before in his kiss. "We're going to take this nice and slow," he told him as Peter's hands trailed down his sides, up his arms, his neck and into his hair. He tangled his fingers in it for long, impossibly gentle kisses that had him chasing Peter's head back up for more.

He trailed lips and stubble over the flat expanse of Stiles' stomach as he rode his shirt up. He captured a hardened nipple between his teeth and bit down, wheedling a needy moan from Stiles' mouth.

"I love the noises you make," Peter told him. His body slid over Stiles with a confidence of movement and intention that Stiles was already too wrecked to match. He could only grab at Peter's shoulders uselessly where the man bit down on the sensitized skin around his implant and pressed their hips together in slow lazy rolls.

"Peter... I'm going to lose it if you keep... ahhhh fuck, if you keep do-doing that. Sensitized skin... oh god," he squeaked out as Peter delivered a last hard nip to his neck. 

"On your stomach," he said slipping off his shirt and Stiles obeyed. Something cold dripped onto his back and he jumped. Peter laughed.

"Sorry about that. This part is better," he promised as he rubbed the oil with careful hands into his back. Peter's hands willed every bit of the tension his passions might have encountered in Stiles' muscles away with a soft touch. His skin was smooth save for little patches of scarring from a rough life lived in determination. The boy had finally started to fill out. The muscles of the waist that twitched beneath his hand were not draped over a layer of pure bone. You could hardly see the outline of his ribs.

He took his time relaxing Stiles. As big a game as the boy talked he'd been a shaking mess since Peter had began laying hands on him. He didn't stop until Stiles was pliant and his tremors had ceased. 

"What are you thinking?" He asked as he worked Stiles' pants down slim hips.

"That I love you," Stiles admitted in a fearful voice. The voice that was absolutely terrified that he wouldn't be loved back. A voice that needed to hear those three stupid little words because this wasn't a time for Peter to be able to count on Stiles' ability to translate actions to words. Not in this circumstance. 

"And if you think that I don't love you back, you're a bigger twit than I imagined. I love you too, Stiles Stilinski." Stiles turned around and gave Peter a look reserved for Gods and mothers. It had the man aching to take him; heated up with want for a person who could adore him that way. Stiles looked at him the way all men wished their lover might; as entitled as that seemed. "I love you, I love you, I love you," he whispered like a litany in Stiles' ear.

"I want you inside me now," he said so timidly that Peter knew there was no room to tease him. 

"Then that's what you'll get," Peter said. "Back on your stomach. It's easier that way," Peter said. "I've gotta get you ready," he said.

Peter had never put anything inside him. He worked Stiles open gently, the sensation of a lube slicked finger crooking inside him sending his eyes wide. Peter loved that look, that surprised wash of pleasure over his face from some clumsy fumbling was sweet, good, and everything right in a universe where even the finest men and women fucked like paid whores on a pleasure colony. There was Stiles, completely undone by something as simple as a touch where others would be demanding more. Peter finished working him. Stiles could hear the sounds of him slicking himself.

"Say it," Peter told him.

"Love you," he gasped out. Peter pushed inside of him in one smooth thrust. "Oh," he said in a broken little gasp that had him burning up when he looked at those big brown eyes blown in pleasure and astonishment.

"Like that?" He laughed.

"Yeah," was his pitiful reply in a quavering voice.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Stiles said and he was clearly too broken by sensation to be very vocal.

"Okay, you just stay relaxed," Stiles nodded and Peter started to move. He was huge, filling Stiles in these intimate places he weren't aware could crave the sensations he was experiencing. It didn't even feel good in the sense he expected it to feel. It was that it was Peter in him this way that gave him a thrill of pleasure until he grew used to the sensation and Peter angled his hips in such a way that the next stroke rocked his world with pleasure.

"Does it always feel like that? Holy shit," Stiles gasped out. Peter didn't answer, he just twisted around to kiss him and laughed.

"I love you," Peter would assure between those deliberately maddening thrusts. He would stop to kiss him often and gently. Every roll of Peter's hips, every deep invasion, every gasp he wrung from Stiles was soft and for his benefit.

"Is this okay for you too?" Asked Stiles. 

"I'm inside you. It's fucking perfect."

"I think I'm getting close," Stiles warned.

"Are you?" Peter said with a grin. "You're going to like this part," Peter said speeding up his thrusts so he could join Stiles quickly in completion. The resulting yelp of pleasure had Peter throbbing.

"Oh shit... Peter I mean it if you keep doing this-." Peter covered his mouth with a joking hand a nipped his ear.

"Stiles I swear to god I love you but I will gag you if you don't shut up and let me make you cum," he warned. The twit came all over the mattress a moment later.

"OH MY GOD!" He cried and the pleasure reverberated in the cabin. He was still gasping like a fish when Peter followed suit a minute later, wrapping tightly around him as he came hard and deep inside him. The way it felt, knowing Peter had properly enjoyed him was intensely satisfying, and intimate in a way Stiles wasn't able to comprehend. The strength of Peter's own orgasm shocked him. All he could do for a long moment was rest his head against Stiles' sweating back.

He placed a kiss with all the affection he could summon up on his cheek and gently pulled out. Stiles was wrecked.

"Are you okay," he asked turning the dazed young man over. "Stiles?"

He was crying. Peter started to laugh.

"It's not funny asshole," Stiles said with bleary eyes. Peter had been expecting this behavior.

"I know."

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Because I love you so much," Peter teased. "And because I'm incredibly happy I met your expectations."

"You said you loved me. I didn't think you were going to say it and I wanted you too so badly. I was so scared you wouldn't because I know that it's hard for you to say things like that. But you just said it like it was so easy."

"That's because it was easy to twit. I would lie down and die should my prince command it," Peter said sweeping himself from the bed and taking Stiles with him. "Now let's go watch one of those awful shows you like in the bath."

\-------------

"It's important that you rely on your military training and especially Peter's to pull this crew into shape. The situation with Lydia and Stiles was ridiculous. You allowed a teenage boy with PTSD and no doubt severe depression be horribly harassed, you thought ignored how much trouble Lydia was in, and you haven't been learning enough about this ship. Poor Stiles runs between engineering and the bridge a dozen times a day and wouldn't dare utter a complaint about it. Don't you think you owe it to him to cross train yourself on the systems? To cross-train others?" Asked Deaton as he sat with Scott in the garden.

"I've, uh, I've been trying," Scott answered shame-faced. "I was never really good with reading and stuff. I'll read the same thing like 14 times and it's like my brain doesn't work the way it's supposed to."

"Lydia or Stiles would help you," Deaton told him. "Why not have one of them sit down and help you?"

"I kind of didn't want to let the smartest people on the ship know the stupidest person on the ship is their captain."

"Ever since I've known you, you've been able to learn a ship like the back of your hand. How did you do it then?"

"The help files," he said with a blush. "The videos and stuff."

"So you think because you're not much of a reader that makes you stupid?" Scott nodded. "How do you think Stiles learned mechanics and engineering?"

"I don't know."

"Any way he could," Deaton answered with a smile. "How could you possibly think Stiles could ever disrespect somebody who wanted to learn for the way they did it. He dug through trash, sewage, and crumbling buildings looking for old parts. I think he'd be terribly excited to talk about anything with you. And I think Lydia would be remarkably assured of her worth to this crew if you went to her for anything. You need to focus less on the individual and more on the whole. You'll become stronger as a pack."

"I-If I told you something; would you swear that it doesn't leave this room?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the less than timely update. A VERY big thanks to my beta reader Ladyfate. She's the reason you're now seeing a more liberal and correct use of commas. <3 Also, I have stopped italicizing Boyd's font because it's a bitch to do. I'll go back and correct it in earlier chapters. I feel it's kind of an unnecessary distinction. Everybody knows he's a disembodied AI.

"This is awesome," Stiles said with his face glued to the window of the obs deck. "When I was little we used to throw stuff into this old hydro dam to see what would happen. It was usually destroyed... except for the time we threw in a balloon. That survived. We saw it floating down river later that day."

"Want to send a probe in?" Scott asked and Stiles looked at him in a way that Peter was man enough to admit made him a little jealous.

"Are you serious?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah, we've got like a billion. Let's do it."

"If I may make a suggestion, we have several probes that were created to withstand a few seconds in the event horizon. May I choose the probe?" Boyd asked.

"Yeah, totally," Stiles said. "Can you bring it up on split screen? This is going to be so freakin' cool." They'd all seen Stiles excited but this definitely took the cake. None of them had ever seen Stiles so ecstatic. His time aboard The Equitas had, for good reason, been punctuated by a melancholy Stiles couldn't shake. For the first time since they came aboard, barring Peter, everybody was getting a look at the real him. Peter loved it.

"Launching."

"YES!!!!" Stiles yelled as they watched the probe speed towards the singularity. "You got this little guy!" he (no caps) yelled to the probe. It sailed into the ergosphere and Stiles watched as the area where time bent to bore a curved hole through space time strangely distorted the view of the lens before washing it in red. His eyes flickered to the other screen where the probe was still traveling towards the center of the singularity and it blew his mind.

"Poor little guy got noodled," Stiles sighed. Peter always worried about Stiles' tendency to anthropomorphize machines. His bond with Boyd was ridiculous but Peter trusted Stiles' judgment. If the kid was convinced the AI was alive, Peter would respect that opinion.

"You know, if I could figure out how the stinkin' FTL drive works I bet I could make a probe that could travel against the framing effect," Stiles said.

"I just don't get the fascination," Derek said. "Why do you want to know so badly? They're the pot holes of space."

"Because the little sons of bitches don't want me to know. Do you know how freakin' crazy that drives me?"

"We're starting to," snarked Jackson.

"No, look they're more than pot holes. I'm sure of it. Somewhere in space is the answer to any question you could ask. That's why it is so big. Stars, planets, black holes, nebula, dark matter; they're clues."

"Clues to what?" Asked Scott.

"The answers to that question," Stiles replied simply. "Stars are some big bad sons of bitches but there are like trillions. They're all just sitting up there like... 'Hey look at me, I'm the answer to fusion!' And then Nebulas are like 'Hey check out what happens when you oscillate protons, and then there are black holes and they're just like 'Hey... I'm not going to tell you shit.' But that little bitch is going to tell me someday," Stiles ranted, narrowing his eyes. Harris gave Peter a look, as if to say he now understood the man's suffering. He turned around and everybody was staring.

"What?"

"Nothing Stiles, they're just jealous that you have passion," Allison stated. "They don't think it's cool to see any mystery in the universe."

"Stiles is the mystery of the universe," Finstock said and everybody laughed. "You want to figure out how a black hole works? Just watch yourself drink coffee."

"I don't drink that much coffee. I only have one cup in the mornings."

"That holds an entire freakin' pot!"

"You are such a snitch!" Stiles said launching a pen at him.

"If I was nine years younger I would punch you!" Finstock shot right back.

"That doesn't even make sense," Stiles said thrown for a loop. Finstock was one of the only people on board that could throw Stiles. He did it with sheer nonsense and it was masterful.

"It still put the wind on the wrong side of your sails."

"That's not... I have to believe you're doing this on purpose. I'm going to turn back around and contemplate the impossibility of a black hole instead of the impossibility of your making it off Earth. One's a lot easier to figure out than the other."

"Do you want to go out in one of the landcraft? It's a better view than a window," Peter said.

"Yes, Yes I do," Stiles said seriously. 

"Does that mean we can move farther away?" Jackson asked.

"There's a station about three light years out. You can move ahead to there," Peter offered. 

"Is it safe to separate?" Scott asked uncertain.

"Even the landcraft moves faster than any ship in Deucalion's fleet. We'll catch up to you within the day," Peter said. Jackson looked horrified when the two left the room.

"You know they're going to have sex in the landcraft right?" asked Jackson.

"It's better than the weapon's locker," Scott said in trauma.

\------------

"This is way cooler than watching from The Equitas," Stiles said. There was something to be said for the difference the craft made in perceiving space. In The Equitas space felt like a road. In a tiny landcraft it felt like they were lost at sea. "It feels like we're more in space than ever. It's the perfect combination of scary and amazing."

"Though my soul may set in darkness; it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." Stiles loved it when Peter recited poetry. Peter would whisper Earth sonnets in his ear in bed until Stiles got worked up. It was meant to be romantic but Peter was man enough to admit he enjoyed reaping the rewards.

"If you're trying to get laid it's totally working," Stiles said unbuckling his seat belt and moving to sit astride Peter in the opposite direction.

"Wait until I break out the Neruda," Peter said wickedly and pulled his engineer in for a steamy kiss. "I wanted to take you on a proper date today. We only have two chances before we leave the quad. I was thinking we'd set this thing on auto-pilot, go to the station and buy you dinner, maybe get you drunk and have my wicked way with you."

"You wanted to take me on a date?" Stiles asked.

"You deserve at least a couple before it's not much of an option anymore."

"That's so romantic, now I just feel cheap," Stiles said.

"If we're being honest with ourselves we're both a little cheap," Peter replied, mouthing a nipple from beneath the fabric of Stiles' shirt. "We're type 10's. We go to a different kind of place when we fuck."

"It's ridiculous. It's only been three days and sometimes I have to stop myself from going to the weapon's locker and just tackling you." Peter started laughing. 

"I'm sorry but that picture in my head is hilarious."

"Hey, I could totally take you down," Stiles said in mock offense. "All I have to do is this," he explained dragging the palm of his hand down the fabric covered cloth of Peter's jeans that evoked a ragged shudder. "See? I know what I do to you Peter Hale. And it's way better than super strength."

"I find it hard to believe you were ever intimidated by sex."

"Me too, I still can't believe how easy it is with you. How bad I want it," Stiles told him. Peter surged forward grabbing him into his arms, swinging him around, and depositing him in the helm chair so he could yank off his boots and pull the pants from his legs. "I love it when you get all hot and bothered, makes you so Alpha-y," Stiles laughed. Then more seriously, "Will you take off your clothes? I want to see you too."

Peter complied, never one to deny a request from his lover. He had so few. It was terribly charming the way Stiles would look at him naked and inevitably look away, more bashful of simply admiring Peter than any other raunchy act they got up too.

"You're so cute," he said, adjusting the chair back as far as it would go and crawling between his legs. 

"I'd be a little indignant about your choice of adjectives if it didn't turn you on so much," Stiles told him and broke into a needy little moan when Peter shoved a finger in his lube smeared hole.

"Shut up and moan," he told the boy. "Tell me what you want," he continued pressing in a second finger.

"Clearly I want you to fuck me," the boy dead panned. "Close," he ordered pulling Peter into him and wrapping his arms around my neck. "I want you holding me while the stars watch how you make me cum."

It was beautiful, the way Peter obeyed every inch of his request. He slipped one arm beneath him to cradle the back of his head and the other around the small of his back. Stiles lined him up with his entrance and canted his hips upward, sighing happily when Peter slid into him and started to move.

"I bet the stars are pissed they can't jerk off to this," Stiles said between breathy moans. "They don't have any arms."

"Anybody would be, a cute little shit getting it good from an Alpha, people would pay to watch you spread your legs," Peter said picking up the speed of his thrusts for a moment, to beyond human, and watching Stiles' mouth form into a wordless O of pleasure. "Did you like that?"

"I love you," he said brokenly and Peter nuzzled his face. When Stiles got terribly deep in the throes of sex that was all he could do. Cling to Peter, swear his devotions, and try to ride out whatever the man gave him. Peter picked up his thrusts for a moment again and Stiles yell of pleasure ripped through the cabin. "Oh my god I fucking love you so much!" he cried. Peter removed the arm from behind his back and used it to hike up one of his legs, giving himself a better angle to takeStiles apart from the inside.

"This is only the beginning. I'm being gentle now but every time I'm inside you makes me want to own a little bit more of you. I like our games Stiles. Don't you?" he asked. Peter wasn't even winded.

"Yeah," he whimpered.

"Are you getting close sweetheart?" Peter asked and Stiles nodded with his hand pressed hard against his forehead. It was one of many coping mechanisms Stiles had that told Peter he was overwhelmed and close to orgasm. Stiles liked to be kissed through those, Peter noticed early on. He leaned back into Stiles, covering him with his full weight, and drove his tongue into Stiles' panting mouth. Peter sped up to that heavenly speed that made Stiles feel like he was being riddled with bullets of pleasure and he came hard and without warning. Peter fucked him for a moment longer before stilling and Stiles felt that odd contentment when warmth flooded his insides.

"Peter?" Stiles asked weakly from beneath him when he'd caught his breath and his heart beat calmed.

"Yeah?"

"I don't mean to kill the moment but I am starting to freeze my ass off now." Peter snorted.

"If you didn't kill the moment you wouldn't be you," the man said, obediently moving to gather their clothes.

"You're such a freakin' gentleman," Stiles laughed after he dressed and Peter draped his jacket around him.

"And you're still too skinny," Peter said. 

They had to be careful of the portions Stiles ate when he first came on board. The first time Peter had cooked for him had been fine. The protein had filled him up well before he could finish the plate. The second time however, had given Peter a nasty scare. Peter had in his ignorance had baked them this ridiculously huge chocolate cake that had sent him into shock he'd eaten so much. Stiles' life of prolonged starvation had him on strict portion control for months and Peter feared he'd never quite grow into the hearty young man his height and build suggested he might have been.

"Come keep me warm instead of criticizing me then." Given that Stiles had already destroyed Peter's reputation the man sighed and let the boy cuddle to his contentment on the cramped helm chair.

\----------------

Stiles was dead to the world when the auto-pilot chimed signaling their destination drawing near. Stiles observed in fascination as Peter gained clearance for docking. He sent word to Scott they'd arrived but would be spending a few hours on the station but heard no reply. If the boy was holed up with Allison that would be typical of him and paid it no mind. The entire crew was on a bit of a shore leave before they exited the system. Boyd was left watching the ship and Stiles made a mental note to spend an entire morning talking to him. He hadn't done that in a few days.

"Is flying difficult? I only know how to do it in theory."

"It is, I think you'd be good at it though. It involves being able to think quickly more than anything. I can teach you."

"Really? Because you say that but we're both people who hate explaining things. I think about 50% of your appeal comes from the fact that you get my reference humor," Stiles laughed.

"It's you though. I don't mind time with you Stiles. Try to remember where you stand with me; I honor you. It is how we love." Stiles slid down Peter's chair and wrapped his arms around Peter's knees, placing his head on his thighs in an Alpha gesture of supplication that stole Peter's breath.

"I honor you too," Stiles said sincerely. "I'm new to this whole being madly in love thing. It's fun though."

"Get up here and engage the docking procedure. You know how in theory right?" Stiles smiled.

"Rear thrusters off?" Peter nodded.

"You know how to do it. Don't ask me. I can fix it if you mess up."

"Okay... Rear thrusters off," Stiles said nervously. "Engage drag and adjust to bearings sent. Engage bottom thrusters," Stiles muttered to himself. "Decrease to 1/10th power? Yeah, 10 percent."

That was a little rough but Peter didn't bother correcting him. He pulled Stiles back into his lap and secured him as the thrusters died down. It was a good little jolt they got upon landing but it had been well done.

"I didn't break anything did I?" Stiles said with a wince.

"I doubt it," Peter told him. "These ships are made to take a beating. These only need 5% lift in gravity. That's something you learn from experience though. You did fine."

"Cool. Let's go see stuff now," he said in excitement. "How long do we have."

"I'm not sure, Scott's probably out exploring and didn't respond. This is Aeternas Station. It's different from a drift. This is a self-sustaining station meant for tourism and habitation. It's much nicer and almost utterly off Deucalion's radar. We'll probably bump into them. It's not big enough to get lost in," Peter said and then frowned. "Just prepare to be stopped about 15 times."

"Why?"

"Because you're human. They're going to think I'm a slaver and that's a big no-no on Aeternas station. This is one of the last good places left in the quad," Peter told him. "If you want to go off and explore by yourself at some point you can."

"Nah, you're stuck with me big guy. I, uh, I'm not too keen on the whole going it alone thing in space right at the moment."

Stiles wound his arm through Peter's, reminiscent of the first time they were on the drift and they continued through customs. True to Peter's prediction their arrival at the gate was met with extreme suspicion.

"What's the nature of your visit?" A severe looking woman with red hair asked. Peter couldn't place her species.

"Tourism," Peter said.

"And the nature of your relationship?" She asked in skepticism and looked to Stiles for the answer.

"He's my big wolfy lover," Stiles said pinching Peter's cheeks. "He's broody but very handsome." Peter's long suffering look and Stiles' hijinks visibly assured her. Her mouth turned down in a suppressed smile. Still, Aeternas was all business when it came to upholding its strict no-slave policy.

"I'm going to ask you to step back to that wall Sir," she said. Stiles looked panicked.

"Why?"

"It's okay, they just want to ask you a few questions," Peter assured. "They just want to make sure you're safe." He released Stiles and obediently stepped back to the far wall, behind the designated red line. Two armed men came to stand in front of him, guns pointed.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Stiles said his voice rising in panic.

"It's just procedure. We need to make sure you're here of your own free will."

"I am, now put the guns down. Please!" he begged. Stiles sighed in relief when the woman made a signal with her hand and turned just in time to see Peter drop to the floor, seized from the force of a stun rod.

"Peter!" He yelled and made a break for him only to be yanked back by the arms. "Let me go! What the fuck are you doing to him!?"

"He's being processed," the woman said coldly. "As has every Alpha who has crossed this drift since Deucalion's destruction of Earth. This is truly for your own good, sweetheart. We'll get you to a nice settlement and you can start to focus on who you are without the influence of the Alphas. He may have you cowed with sweet words but at the end of the day you're just a slave to him, a profit or a hole." 

"I'm giving you one chance to take that back and let us walk out of here. You don't know me lady. I can turn this entire station into a pile of space junk with a fucking thought!" He yelled. Her face morphed into one of patronizing amusement.

"With that little implant of yours? You'd need a tether amongst other things. That little trick might have made you hot shit on Earth but this is the functioning universe sweetheart. You have no idea what you're saying."

"Niels. Bohr." Stiles said through grinding teeth.

"Excuse me?"

"It activates the wireless access I have to my ship. Lady you're about to have a nightmare on your hands," Stiles said waiting for a signal from Boyd. When he connected his eyes went bright and his body stiff as the interface connected. Stiles' eyes went from welcoming brown to coffee dark and were one to look closely they could see the numbers rolling across them.

"Knock him out!" She yelled.

"That would be a very bad idea." Boyd's voice came over the speakers and the Equitas came out of masking outside the orbit of the station.

"Say hello to my ship. He's alive, he's very pissed, and very protective. You might want to let me go," Stiles snickered in glee as several micro-lasers created tiny little pin-pricks through their chests. 

"I made my little implant myself. I wasn't just hot shit on Earth, I was the shit. That shit; is micro-lasers and they'll drop you in a millisecond with zero damage to the hulls. I win lady. Go get my friends and pray they aren't dead. They'd be hard to miss. A group of Alphas that came in with an Ashuran, another human, and a Banshee. You can get them or I can open every cell door in this place and give you a really bad day."

"We could kill your man," the woman responded with ice dripping off her voice.

"I've got you dead to rights lady," Stiles said walking to Peter with shaky steps. The man had finished convulsing and was picking himself up off the floor. 

"I don't want to hurt anybody, I've seen too much death. You fight for Earth while you sit on a throne," Stiles said putting his arms around Peter. "You kill, and you hurt, and you're just as dirty as anybody else in this awful universe. But this man has saved thousands of lives. I don't think I'll ever understand the place hate comes from but you're full of it lady. It's coming out your ears. I know you think you're doing good but you're not. You're trying to take away the only family I have left out of blind hatred and prejudice. Please don't do that to me."

Stiles tried to calm himself. To take a page of reason and understanding from his mother's book. The woman looked at the two men who once held Stiles.

"Bring up his friends," the woman ordered.

"No," Stiles said.

"You take us to them. I want to see what kind of operation you're running here and try and convince you how wrong you're being," Stiles said when Peter got to his feet. The woman looked taken aback. "Please," implored the boy. "If you're afraid of something. If something is wrong, maybe we can help? This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced in my life. You don't seem like a hateful person. What's wrong?"

Sometimes Peter thought Stiles was an angel. He was set to deliver killing blows but Stiles was much more effective. His kindness and warmth a contagious thing and his generosity boundless. The woman's eyes misted up.

"Alpha slavers have been desperate to get their hands on humans. They've been pulling one after another out of the station for weeks. They're worth a fortune now, a pure human. Alphas I've known my entire life... Good men and women who would never lay hands to a human have become blinded by greed. We're just trying to protect what we have left." Stiles gave her a blinding smile.

"We can help with that."

\----------

"So he just... talked us out?" Scott said in astonishment.

"There was a threat or two involved. But in the end he just spoke to her," Peter said.

"His capacity for reason and compassion are incredible. The universe could use more Stiles Stilinski's," Deaton praised.

"So what are we still doing here?" asked Derek.

"Stiles wants to adapt some of our masking technology to their station and have us tow it to orbit a planet with high iron concentrations too inhospitable for mining. We can likely just give them the technology to adapt themselves and give them a tow."

"So we're going to forget the part where they tried to kill us?" Jackson snarked.

"Stiles did," Allison said. "Forgiveness makes the universe a prettier place."

The tow was a fairly easy procedure. The Equitas had the power to spare for it. By the end of the day Stiles and the rest of the crew had been loaded down with gifts and tokens of appreciation. Stiles had been loaded down with a lifetime supply of the soda version of Nebula's Middle after asking for a bottle to call them even. He suspected the woman, Cateryn was her name, had scoured every corner of the station to get the kid every last bottle of that life shortening concoction of sweetness and caffeine. Stiles had drank well over a liter by the time they were ready to depart. Oddly enough the last one she spoke to wasn't Stiles, whom she'd given a bone crushing motherly hug to before he boarded the landcraft they'd come in on. It was Peter.

"Could I have a word with you?"

"Are you going to tase me again?"

"No, and I won't apologize for the first time. The universe is a rough place, suck it up Mr. Hale."

"Fair enough."

"You're with a very remarkable young man. I'm sure you're aware." The corner of Peter's mouth twitched. He was terribly proud of his choice in lover.

"Very."

"I wish to share something with you," she said. "Hypothetically speaking let's say that the Grimari were not as dead as people think. Let's say the old rumors were true and they could see into souls."

"If that rumor were true I'd definitely be a little more insulted by the tazer," Peter said arching a brow.

"You'd understand if you saw Stiles through my eyes. That boy must be protected at all costs. As sweet as he was on you, I might have let the two of you slip right by if I hadn't seen what I did."

"And what was that?"

"A soul that burns bright with fire and magic. See as I see, Peter Hale," the woman said touching his temples. And Peter saw, Stiles in his truest form through Grimari eyes. His soul was teeming with old magic, bound tightly around his fragile body and feeding a soul that burned so brightly it was like staring at the sun. It was beautiful, humbling, and good with only the smallest tinge of darkness. Cateryn released him. 

"When he is ready to fight, the Grimari will ally with him. We are fleet and we are strong. He is weak now, but on a journey that will make him stronger. He has trusted you as protector and you must fulfill this role at all costs. He is destiny as sure as the universe itself and you're a believer. You must guide him."

Peter nodded, "I know."

"Good. You know where to find us when he is ready."

Peter returned to the landcraft he and Stiles had ridden in on with a smile on his face.

"What is it?" Stiles asked, jittery from soda.

"Just feeling a little smug that you're mine is all," the man said and Stiles pressed a big sloppy kiss to his cheek. "I'm just sorry the day got ruined."

"It didn't get ruined. Everything turned out great. We were exactly where we needed to be."

"Buckle in," Peter ordered and they took off from the hangar. "I just wanted you to have a good day," he told him as they headed back to the hangar of the Equitas.

"You're seriously that worried about it?" Peter didn't speak. "Oh my god that's so sweet."

"Shut up Stiles," Peter sighed. Stiles reached out and grabbed his hand.

"Every day is a good day for me Peter. I used to be dirty, hungry, and lonely. Now I eat every day, I get to take showers whenever I want, and I have you. When we get back to the ship let's just lay down and watch a movie. I'd really like that," Stiles said.

Of course an hour later the movie was forgotten as Peter selfishly sought the space between Stiles' legs.


End file.
